Tag Archive for: Broadcast Media

White House Rescissions Package Would Defund PBS Days after ‘Sesame Street’ Celebrates Pride Month

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The Trump administration has introduced a multibillion-dollar budget-cutting measure to free taxpayers from subsidizing far-left programs, including a provision to completely defund public broadcasting outlets just days after a PBS children’s show posted a social media message celebrating Pride Month.

The $9.4 billion rescissions package, delivered to Congress by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Tuesday, slashes programs conservatives have long denounced as wasteful, including $1.2 million in foreign aid projects promoting the LGBTQ+ lifestyle in such socially conservative regions as the Caribbean, the western Balkans, and Uganda. The White House says it also eliminates such wasteful or controversial programs as feeding insect powder to children in Africa.

One of every eight dollars cut by the proposal comes from public broadcasting. The rescissions package eliminates more than $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the parent of National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting System (PBS), which conservatives have long opposed due to its lack of constitutional authorization and overwhelmingly left-wing bias. Taxpayers furnished $535 million of the CPB’s $545 million annual revenue in fiscal year 2025. (The other $10 million came from estimated interest). The rescissions package cancels all CPB allocations for two years.

The proposed budget cut came just two days after the most beloved show on PBS, “Sesame Street,” posted a social media message celebrating the LGBTQ agenda on the first day of June, dubbed “Pride Month” by LGBT activists.

PBS Is ‘Grooming Children’ at Taxpayer Expense: Congressman

“On our street, everyone is welcome. Together, let’s build a world where every person and family feels loved and respected for who they are. Happy #PrideMonth!” exclaimed the social media account representing “Sesame Street” on Sunday. The accompanying graphic depicted the show’s Muppet characters linking arms to form a rainbow. The provocative post triggered widespread outrage.

“PBS is grooming children on American taxpayers’ dime. This is unacceptable. Congress must defund them and hold the executives accountable,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) Monday morning. “Nothing to see here: just a publicly funded puppet show promoting weird sex stuff to your three-year-old,” said Michael Knowles of The Daily Wire. Sean Davis, co-founder of The Federalist, called the meme’s creators “[g]roomer freaks.” The Center for American Renewal, founded by OMB Director Russell Vought, cited the post as “further evidence that your tax dollars are funding propaganda for kids.”

While conservatives have documented public broadcasting’s liberal bias nearly since President Lyndon Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, they say introducing gender confusion to toddlers is a new low. “They most certainly are trying to ‘normalize’ deviancy,” said radio talk show host Janet Parshall, sharing a video of the children’s characters featuring a flamboyant man on the HBO Max “Sesame Street” spin-off “The Not-Too-Late Show with Elmo.” That program, which advertises itself as a “star-studded talk show for the whole family,” won a media award from the LGBTQ+ pressure group GLAAD in 2021.

“Is this the kind of ‘education’ PBS insists taxpayers must continue paying for?” asked the Heritage Foundation. “We must defund PBS and NPR immediately. No excuses GOP,” said Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA.

Conservative members of Congress have heeded the call to enact the rescissions package’s cuts to these and other programs. “I’m looking forward to defunding NPR,” Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” on Tuesday.

Four out of 10 registered voters support cutting or eliminating taxpayer funding of NPR and PBS. “Pluralities of voters say that PBS (36%) and NPR (35%) are biased against Donald Trump and the Republicans,” reported the Napolitan News survey released last month.

NPR claims it “gets only about 1% of [its] funding from the federal government,” but critics say that accounting trick ignores fees the national headquarters charges local affiliates for carrying its nationally syndicated programming. CPB figures argue at the same time that they receive little taxpayer funding and that they cannot survive without it. “Rescinding these funds would devastate PBS,” said PBS CEO Paula Kerger.

Giving the CPB a zero budget would also be a step toward codifying President Trump’s executive orders. On May 1, he signed an executive order directing the CPB to “cease direct funding to NPR and PBS, consistent with my Administration’s policy to ensure that Federal funding does not support biased and partisan news coverage.”

While House Republicans have introduced many bills to codify these executive orders permanently, few bills have reached the president’s desk. “We should be codifying EOs and passing rescissions by the hour — no weekends, no breaks, no vacations. We must pass ALL DOGE cuts!” said Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.). The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced that it has identified $180 billion in savings, or $1,118.01 for every U.S. taxpayer, so far. “We’re totally committed to making the DOGE cuts permanent,” pledged Trump in an Oval Office press conference with departing DOGE leader Elon Musk last Friday.

Conservatives also support the rest of the White House’s budget-cutting measures.

Rescissions Package Cuts USAID, LGBTQ, and Eat-the-Bugs Programs

The rescissions package released Tuesday also curtails controversial programs including international promotion of LGBTQ causes and programs to feed insects to children. OMB detailed numerous programs cut by the package, including:

  • $900 million from USAID;
  • $33,000 for “Being LGBTI in the Caribbean”;
  • $643,000 for LGBTQI+ programs in the Western Balkans;
  • $567,000 for LBGTQI+ programs in Uganda;
  • $833,000 for “transgender people, sex workers and their clients and sexual networks” in Nepal;
  • $5.1 million for “resilience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans gender, intersex, and queer global movements”;
  • $3 million for circumcision, vasectomies, and condoms in Zambia;
  • $67,000 for testing insect powder nutrition on children in Madagascar;
  • $595,400 for training women in gender equity;
  • $500,000 for electric buses in Rwanda;
  • $6 million for “net zero cities” in Mexico; and
  • $135 million for the World Health Organization.

“I think it’s great to eliminate much of the funding of USAID,” Clyde told Perkins. “It’s ludicrous that we as American taxpayers are spending money on things like ‘Sesame Street’ in Iraq, or all these LGBTQ+ programs across the world. That is not anything that our taxpayers want their money spent on.”

This rescissions package “will be the first of many” legislative proposals to pare back spending, said Clyde — a promise made by the White House and confirmed by House leadership.

Pass Rescissions ‘Immediately’: House Conservatives

The conservative House Freedom Caucus called on House leadership to “immediately move this to the floor for swift passage,” as a demonstration the Republican Party will prove responsive to its own voters. “Passing this rescissions package will be an important demonstration of Congress’s willingness to deliver on DOGE and the Trump agenda. While the Swamp will inevitably attempt to slow and kill these cuts, there is no excuse for a Republican House not to advance the first DOGE rescissions package the same week it is presented to Congress then quickly send it for passage in the Republican Senate so President Trump can sign it into law.”

As of now, the date the House will vote on the package remains uncertain. “I would love to see it on the floor this week. I have not seen it on the schedule this week. But I heard that there’s a potential that it will be on the schedule for next week, and that would be fine, too,” Clyde told Perkins.

But Clyde explained moving the package through the House expeditiously may hold the key to its passage, final adoption, and the ability of Congress to deliver future rescissions packages. The cuts’ ratification “has to be done and be done quickly in order to maintain its privilege in the Senate, which means that it can bypass the Senate filibuster.” Under federal statute, both the House and Senate pass a rescissions package through an expedited process; in the Senate, debate is limited to 10 hours and both the motion to proceed to a vote and the final vote pass by a simple majority without the possibility of a filibuster.

Avoiding Democratic procedural stalling techniques “is absolutely critical, because I don’t think we’re going to get any rescissions done if we have to pass the Senate filibuster,” said Clyde. “Because it only requires 51 votes in the Senate, then we have to act on this very, very quickly. And I think that this week or next week would be sufficient. But it must be approved by the House and sent to the Senate so that the Senate can use its expedited procedures to approve it and send it back to the president for signature.”

Rescissions created by the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (2 U.S.C. 682-688) allow Congress to cut previous spending before its budgetary authority runs out, making it a powerful tool to cut back the nation’s budget deficit.

OMB Director Russell Vought has also raised the possibility the Trump administration will use impoundment, in which the president does not spend all the funds allotted by Congress, to reduce federal spending. “We may not actually have to get … Congress to pass the rescissions bills,” he said. “We have executive tools; we have impoundment.”

“Despite the modest size of President Trump’s rescission request, rescission packages can be valuable in helping policymakers eliminate unneeded and unused federal funding. Even rescissions for funding that would otherwise never be spent can prevent policymakers from later using the funds for new spending increases or tax cuts. While rescissions themselves can’t solve the nation’s fiscal challenges, they can be a step in the right direction to cut wasteful spending in the federal budget,” wrote Jordan Haring, director of fiscal policy at the American Action Forum.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

RELATED ARTICLE: U.S. Taxpayers Must Fund Gender Transitions in Federal Prisons, per Judge

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

PERKINS: Taxpayer Funds Should Respect the Will of the People

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A House DOGE subcommittee put a magnifying glass to NPR and PBS, funded in part with federal tax dollars through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The most recent budget shows that the two left-leaning media outlets rake in just shy of $550 million a year from taxpayers.

DOGE’s triad is waste, fraud, and abuse. An obvious issue lawmakers are debating in this age of multi-media — and our unprecedented $36 trillion of national debt — is whether the government’s funding of these broadcasts is a waste of taxpayer dollars. That’s a legitimate question. Add to that concern the abuse of left-leaning viewpoints, like NPR’s promotion of genderqueer dinosaur enthusiasts and the fact that there isn’t a single identified Republican working at NPR at the national level, and you can understand the growing concerns about the abuse of taxpayer dollars.

In addition to direct funding, NPR and PBS also enjoy various federal carve-outs that give them competitive advantages over other news providers. Many believe the government should keep its thumb off the First Amendment’s scale and force NPR and PBS to stand on their own — free of federal subsidies.

Yet, the starkest example of waste, fraud, and abuse may be found in the abortion industry — particularly at Planned Parenthood, which surpasses NPR and PBS in the scope of public funding and controversy.

Let’s Talk about Waste:

  • After the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, Planned Parenthood reportedly raised nearly $500 million. Instead of using that money for health care services at their clinics, which the group claims is their priority, much of it went toward the organization’s political and legal interests.
  • Meanwhile, $699 million in taxpayer funds supported their clinics, where patient numbers have been steadily declining even as abortion procedures have risen.
  • According to The New York Times, Planned Parenthood has spent millions on CEO salaries, such as their national president, Alexis Johnson, whose annual salary in 2023 was $904,000. At the same time, very little funding was allocated to staff training — leading to incidents such as botched IUD placements and abortions.
  • I’m not alone in insisting that taxpayers shouldn’t be bankrolling the million-dollar salary of the CEO who heads the nation’s largest baby-killing operation. Even after the abortion lobby spent hundreds of millions of dollars after Roe fell, 60% of Americans still oppose taxpayer funding of abortion.

Let’s Talk Fraud:

  • Planned Parenthood has repeatedly faced allegations of trafficking fetal tissue — “baby body parts” — for profit.
  • There are also multiple reports suggesting Planned Parenthood has covered up criminal behavior and sexual abuse involving the very women it claims to serve.

Abuse?

  • The organization is increasingly pivoting toward so-called “gender-affirming” hormone therapy, including for minors — something many states are trying to prevent for their young residents.
  • Ultimately, it’s an abuse of taxpayer dollars to subsidize an entity involved in taking the lives of 400,000 unborn Americans.

Here is the bottom line: Our leaders should foster true neutrality in public funding and respect the will of citizens who object to financing controversial practices. It’s time to end all government funding for organizations like Planned Parenthood that are killing America’s opportunity to be great again.

AUTHOR

Tony Perkins

Tony Perkins is president of Family Research Council and executive editor of The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Mainstream Pollsters Are ‘Mouthpieces for the Government’ and Corporate Oligarchy: Pollster

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A series of inaccurate polls that consistently favored Kamala Harris and liberal issues in the 2024 election shows that mainstream pollsters are “mouthpieces for the government” and for the corporate behemoths who own their networks, a pollster who accurately predicted the election’s outcome has said.

Polls from the legacy media consistently presented the Harris-Walz campaign as surging and possibly poised to win the White House on Tuesday. In reality, Donald Trump won 31 states and bested Harris in the popular vote — a first for a Republican presidential candidate in two decades. Yet NBC News and ABC News reported a three-point lead for Kamala Harris going into election day, 49% to 46%. CBS News polls showed the 2024 presidential race tied. On the other hand, Rasmussen Reports forecast a 2.4% lead for Donald Trump. What explains such disparate poll results?

“Polling is content. And when your pollsters all report up to organizations that are owned by massive corporations that have vested interests in making sure that the corporate oligarchy status quo in D.C. maintains its control, that’s what happens. They are literally mouthpieces for the government, and I’ve proven that they shill for Democrats,” Mark Mitchell, chief pollster of Rasmussen Reports, told “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” on Wednesday. “We caught them. They absolutely cooked the internals of the polls, because the exit polling is showing that who turned out to vote is nothing like what was in ABC polls, NBC polls, Reuters, Ipsos — not at all.”

ABC News reported that the most important issue to voters in 2024 was protecting democracy from incipient fascism. That was followed by the economy, keeping abortion legal, and granting amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, the network stated.

“The state of democracy narrowly prevailed as the most important issue to voters out of five tested in the exit polls,” claimed ABC News, citing its own exit polls on election night. “Thirty-five percent of voters ranked it as their top issue, followed by 31% who said the economy, 14% who said abortion, 11% who said immigration and 4% who said foreign policy.”

“Legal abortion wins majority backing in all seven swing states from 60% to 69%,” ABC News asserted. It also claimed 57% of 2024 voters said illegal immigrants should not be deported but instead “should be offered a chance to apply for legal status,” despite polls showing nearly that exact number (54%) of Americans support mass deportations.

That did not ring true with Mitchell. “I’ve never seen that” constellation of issues rise to the top of the 2024 election, Mitchell told Perkins. “The number one issue has always been the economy in our polling, and the exit polling is confirming that. And then number two is the border — but it doesn’t really capture the pain that people are feeling just talking about the border.”

Voters feel that “America is in a much, much worse place after the Biden administration,” said Mitchell. “Only 37% of voters said they’re better off than they were four years ago. Only 27% of voters in the swing states say they’re safer than there were four years ago.” And only about one in five voters said that “today’s children will be better off than their parents.”

“That’s absolutely horrible,” said Mitchell. “So, when they talk about the border and the economy, they’re telling you: Stop the invasion; bring back the middle class. Because the Democrats, in my opinion, killed it.”

ABC News buried news of the voters’ economic anguish. “The economy remains a key irritant. Voters say it’s in bad shape by 67%-32%. And 45% say their own financial situation is worse now than four years ago, versus 30% the same, with just 24% doing better. The ‘worse off’ number exceeds its 2008 level, then 42%, and far outpaces its shares in 2020 (20%) and 2016 (28%),” said its exit polling.

“With a different hand of cards, [Harris] might actually have won this thing,” said Mitchell. “But she is the status quo candidate, and people hate the status quo.”

Yet pollster Ann Seltzer had a last-minute poll supposedly showing Kamala Harris winning the reliably Republican state of Iowa.

That was “probably the most ridiculous thing that ever happened in the industry,” said Mitchell. Selzer “can definitely poll Iowa, because she’s been doing it cycle after cycle. And she even polled it in July and had Trump up 18. Trump finished at 14, but she put up a Harris plus-three result right on the weekend before election day, just to satiate the Democrat need for some kind of good news.”

“She burned her credibility,” said Mitchell.

“The legacy media and their pollsters should not have a shred of credibility,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

Mitchell touted the work of Rasmussen pollsters, with one exception. His firm “underestimated the massive Republican turnout” in Texas. “If you take that one out, our error goes down to 0.2% in the states. Eleven out of the 14 states we hit within the margin of error.”

In all, he agreed the political landscape had realigned in 2024, with a multiracial working-class supporting Trump and suburban social liberals shifting to the Democratic Party.

The 2024 election showed middle-class “people fleeing the Democrat Party,” he noted. “There are some offsets. There are the upper-class suburban women and the Boomer men who watch MSNBC. Those people are breaking more towards Harris.”

Meanwhile, “the Republicans, the Donald Trump movement, are really starting to become the core of the counterculture.”

But the realignment of the United States is “all predicated on the Republican Party reforming around the MAGA agenda. Because voters overwhelmingly think the Republican Party is the party of Trump and the MAGA movement.”

“The MAGA tenets are very popular,” said Mitchell. But since “Trump can’t run again,” the persistence of an America First agenda in the GOP “has yet to be seen.”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘What Are You Talking About?’: Harris Confuses, Shouts Down Host during Fox News Interview

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Vice President Kamala Harris tried to cram a stream of anti-Trump allegations into her Fox News interview with Bret Baier, frequently talking over him before concluding the interview in a litany of shouted claims about how former President Donald Trump presented an existential threat to democracy. Meanwhile, she dodged questions about taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for prison inmates and illegal immigrants, amnesty for potentially tens of millions of illegal immigrants, how she would differ from Joe Biden, and whether her open borders policies contributed to the deaths of numerous young American women.

Harris attempted to brush off Baier’s efforts to receive an answer to his questions by implying that he secretly knew she was right, at one point leading the top-rated news anchor to reply, “What are you talking about?”

News consumers hoping to get a concrete idea of what a President Harris would do in office were sorely disappointed on issue after issue. “Are you still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens to transition to another gender?” asked Baier at one point.

“I will follow the law,” she replied — an answer she gave to numerous policy questions, ignoring the fact that presidents pass, interpret, and enforce the law.

She later claimed the controversial policy of inflicting transgender procedures on federal prisoners is “a law that Donald Trump actually followed.” The Trump administration actually watered down the Obama-Biden administration’s interpretation of federal law which called transgender “transitions” for prisoners “necessary.” The first transgender surgery carried out in federal prisons took place in 2022, during the Biden-Harris administration.

“Kamala Harris has forcefully advocated for transgender inmates to be able to get transition surgeries, President Trump never has,” clarified Brian Hughes, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign.

In fact, candidate Harris bragged to a transgender pressure group that, as California attorney general, “I pushed for that policy” to assure inmates had “access to the medical care that they desired,” adding she may have been the “first in the country” to do so.

On Wednesday, the vice president brushed aside the Trump campaign’s attempts to distance itself from the prison procedures.

“Well, you know what? You got to take responsible [sic] for what happened in your administration,” declared Harris.

Observers predicted the line would come back to haunt the incumbent vice president, who has presided over 40-year-high inflation rates, long periods of wage deterioration, historically unprecedented numbers of illegal border crossings, the invasion of U.S. apartment buildings by transnational criminal gangs, and record-breaking numbers of American deaths from drug overdoses.

Harris’s eyes darted back-and-forth when asked, “When did you first notice Joe Biden’s mental faculties were diminished?”

“He has the judgment and the experience to do exactly what he has done,” Harris replied.

“Joe Biden is not on the ballot,” she added. At one point, Harris responded, “Let me be very clear: My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency.” But she failed to specify a single policy she would change or to list any mistake of the hyphenated Biden-Harris administration.

The two also clashed over the open border policies enacted during Harris’s tenure in office, which kicked off with more than 90 executive actions undoing Trump administration border security policies. An unprecedented wave of more than 10 million illegal border crossings followed, in addition to new amnesty and “parole” programs, such as the one that placed tens of thousands of Haitians in Springfield, Ohio.

“Looking back, do you regret the decision to terminate Remain in Mexico at the beginning of your administration?” asked Baier.

Harris referenced two pieces of legislation that bookend the Biden-Harris administration, without any mention of the years in between. In an answer that nearly mirrored a response she gave to Charlemagne Tha God earlier in the week, Harris noted that among her administration’s first actions was the introduction of a mass amnesty bill. The administration supported the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, which would have granted amnesty to at least 11 million illegal immigrants over eight years. Despite Democratic control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, the bill never came up for a vote.

She also alleged that Donald Trump bears responsibility for the border situation for opposing a bill negotiated by Senator James Lankford (R-Okla.), which would have allowed 1.8 million illegal immigrants into the country each year, among other proposals that border hawks disliked.

Baier repeatedly attempted to turn the interview back to Harris, her record, and her policies. He noted that among the six million or more illegal immigrants released into the U.S. homeland by the Biden-Harris administration were those who assaulted and killed U.S. citizens Jocelyn Gary, Rachel Moran, and Laken Riley. When Baier asked if Harris owed their families an apology, she replied she felt “sorry for their loss.”

During a Fox News town hall with Harris Faulkner, Trump laid down a radically different immigration plan. “We’re going to end all sanctuary cities in the United States, and we’re going to go back to normalcy, and we’re going to have law and order,” he said, to massive cheers. The former president has also promised a mass deportation of illegal immigrants, a policy supported by the majority of Americans.

Baier kept up the pressure, citing a recent poll which found that 79% of Americans believe the nation is on the wrong track, and “that track follows three and a half years of you being vice president,” said Baier. “If you’re turning the page, you’ve been in office for three and a half years.”

“And Trump has been running for office,” replied Harris, echoing her response that she had “never been to Europe” during her disastrous interview with NBC News host Lester Holt.

When Baier pushed Harris over her responsibility for her actions, she replied, “You and I both know what I’m talking about. You and I both know what I’m talking about.”

“I actually don’t. What are you talking about?” replied an inquisitive Baier.

He later asked Harris about the eight out of 10 Americans who believe Biden-Harris administration policies have sapped American strength. “Are they misguided? Are they stupid?” asked Baier.

“No, God, I would never say that,” replied Harris, apparently taking the Lord’s Name in vain.

Harris then accused Donald Trump of “suggesting he would turn the American military on the American people.” Harris Faulkner asked Trump about that allegation earlier in the day. “I’m not threatening anybody,” he replied, noting that he has “been investigated more than Alphonse Capone. It’s called weaponization of government.”

As the interview came to a conclusion, Harris began yelling, waving her hands, and screaming at Baier while insisting it is Donald Trump who is “misguided,” “unstable,” and “mentally not stable.” Harris filibustered Baier, refusing to yield as he tried to redirect her to the original topic. “I have a lot more to say” about Donald Trump, Harris complained.

Baier expressed his regret that the interview lacked substance, to which Harris replied “I invite everyone to go” to her campaign website.

“I tried to redirect numerous times without interrupting too much,” said Baier after the interview. He also noted the Harris campaign tried to shorten the interview significantly.

“We were supposed to start at 5 p.m. This was the time they gave us. Originally, we were going to do 25 or 30 minutes. They came in and said, ‘Well, maybe 20,’ so it was already getting whittled down. And then the vice president showed up about 5:15. We were pushing the envelope to be able to turn it around for the top of the 6 o’clock” hour. “I had a lot of other questions,” Baier added.

Baier also revealed that Harris’s campaign aides pushed him hard to “wrap,” or end the interview early. “I’m talking, like four people, waving their hands like, ‘It’s gotta stop!’” he said.

The interview went so poorly that shortly after its conclusion Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance advised his “Democratic friends: maybe you should consider swapping Kamala Harris for Joe Biden.” The Trump War Room retweeted the entire interview with the message, “Our newest ad just dropped.”

“Kamala’s not used to real interviews. It shows,” said Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah). “She is melting under the spotlight,” said Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump and founder of America First Legal.

Democrats and members of the liberal media tried to defend Harris’s performance. Harris campaign senior adviser and former adviser to Barack Obama David Plouffe called the exchange “an ambush.” MSNBC hostess Mika Brzezinski posted on X that “@KamalaHarris did a great job” during “a rude and misleading interview.” Brzezinski also accused Baier of “performing for an audience of one,” implying Baier tailored his questions to please Trump — although MSNBC hosts have reported receiving texts from Democratic White House officials live on the air.

CNN’s Brian Stelter predicted, “A lot of viewers are going to come away saying, ‘Wow, she’s willing to do that. That’s a sign of toughness and strength.’” The host of “The Situation Room,” Wolf Blitzer, agreed with Stelter that Harris’s performance was “impressive indeed.”

Media headlines repeatedly referred to the interview as “testy.”

“It was a little tense,” Baier told Sean Hannity, adding the video — which showed Harris pausing, stuttering, and looking around frantically at times — was unedited. “I think she had a mission,” said Baier. She wanted to have a viral moment … and I think she might have gotten that.”

Harris, who has attempted to pitch her candidacy to the relatively narrow slither of Never Trump Republicans who lined up behind former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley in the primaries, has also discussed interviewing on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

“Maybe she’ll come back,” said Baier. “I don’t know whether she will or not, but I hope she does.”

“I think I understand why they don’t want tough interviews, and this will probably be the last one,” replied Hannity.

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘This Week On The Hill’: Tony Perkins Talks Faith with Speaker Mike Johnson

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On Saturday morning, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins helmed the “maiden voyage” of Salem Radio Network’s newest program “This Week On The Hill,” featuring U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) as the show’s inaugural guest. The two Louisiana conservatives discussed, among other things, the role that Christian faith plays in American politics — from guiding legislation to holding the Republican Party together to ending abortion.

Referring to their decades-long friendship, Perkins said to Johnson, “You and I go back to when you were in law school, and faith plays a major role in our lives and in your life in particular. … And there’s some that say, ‘That has no place in [Congress].’” Johnson replied, “Well, those who say that don’t understand our history, the foundation of our country.” He continued, “We were built upon our Judeo-Christian heritage and our foundation is that, it’s chiseled into the marble right above the speaker’s rostrum, right there in the House chamber: ‘In God We Trust.’ That’s what makes us different. That’s what made us exceptional from the beginning.” Johnson added:

“If you look back in history and you study the writings of the founders and the previous leaders in the Congress, how they spoke, what they said, they were very open about this idea that God is our creator. He’s the one that gives us our rights, not government. These things used to be known as self-evident truths. Not so much anymore.”

The Speaker also noted that the first American presidents, including George Washington and John Adams, warned that the American republic is “an experiment on the world stage. We don’t know how long it’ll last. But … of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports, and we seem to have forgotten some of that.”

Perkins asked what role Christian faith plays in the policy decisions of today. Johnson responded, “We have to recognize right now we’re not really in a battle right now between Republicans and Democrats anymore. It’s deeper than that. This is between two competing visions for who we are as a country, who we are as Americans.” He continued:

“And if you’re a person of faith, you’re a Christian, that is a worldview, and that informs how you think about issues and you believe in absolute truths and in a sense of morality that is supposed to guide these decisions. If you don’t jettison that when you walk in the building, it’s supposed to be a part of the fabric of what you decide. … It is our philosophy. It is our worldview, and it informs what we do.”

Johnson also spoke of being elected Speaker back in October and recent challenges to his speakership from within the Republican Party. “This was not a job that I aspired to,” he said. “To be speaker of the House in this modern era is a unique challenge.” Referring to a move by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) to vacate the speakership, Johnson said, “Marjorie and I agree on philosophy, not on strategy. And she’s upset about the appropriations process, the spending bills. And guess what? So am I.” He explained, “We’re not going to get 100% of what we want. Because remember, whatever we pass, we’ve got to send over to the Senate that’s run by Chuck Schumer. And it’s got to be signed into law by Joe Biden. They’re not going to give us anything that we want.”

In discussing narrowly avoiding a government shutdown by compromising on appropriations bills, Johnson stated, “We shouldn’t be opposed [to] or scared of a government shutdown. But you have to have a plan to get a better policy outcome or to get something on the other side. You don’t shut it down just for the sake of that.” He explained that a government shutdown would eventually be blamed on House Republicans, many of whom may not be reelected as a result. Since Democrat votes would be needed to reopen the government, Johnson clarified, Republicans would have to make major concessions on policy to secure those votes and reopen the government. “It probably guarantees that we lose our House majority in the election in November, and I can’t reopen the government,” the Speaker said. “We would have wound up much worse off than the appropriations bills at the end of that, and we would have been blamed for everything.”

Turning to the issue of abortion, Johnson posited that Democrats are using the hot-button issue to distract voters from their policy failures. “They’re absolutely desperate in this election cycle,” the Speaker said. “And they believe abortion is the only thing they can run on. They know that because their policies have been so disastrous for everybody. They’re not being honest.” Johnson explained that in shielding their own extreme positions on abortion, Democrats are attempting to paint pro-life Republicans as restrictive extremists.

He also discussed the role that Christians and conservatives must play in building a “culture of life.” Johnson declared, “If you’re going to have political consensus on a controversial issue, you’ve got to have cultural consensus first.” He explained further:

“The challenge for us right now — for the church or people of faith or the Republican Party — is to help build that culture of life and so that we make people understand the stakes here, that’s why it’s so important and why this makes us who we are as Americans. It’s about human dignity. It’s about recognizing that all of us are not just born equal, we are created equal. That’s what our nation’s birth certificate says in the declaration.”

“This Week On The Hill” airs Saturday mornings at 7 a.m. EST on the Salem Radio Network. The show is also available on the Salem News Channel, Salem Podcast Network, and Townhall.com.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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