Mike Murphy: The Curious Case of Elon Musk, MAGA & Electric Vehicles

"Today’s post lives at that busy crossroads of business and politics.

Yesterday, the busy elves at the American EV Jobs Alliance (where I’m Founding Elf) released a fascinating report on Elon Musk’s numbers in a national poll we did after the election

The data tells a odd but impressive story: Elon has sped from EV Jesus to MAGA superstar with neck-snapping speed, creating all sorts of complicated cross currents. On one hand Elon’s new MAGA Avenger could have a strong positive effect on future Republican consumer acceptance of EVs. (There is some evidence in the data he already has.) That said, to date there is little evidence he is personally interested in doing anything like that. I think the cause of EV adoption is longer of any interest to Elon with his current role as Acting President of the United States, Twitter yob and Federal HR Berserker being so much more fun.

So then, how is Elon’s new Bond villain status among so many non-GOP current and potential EV buyers affecting Tesla’s brand? It’s not pretty. (Quite the ol’ gender gap for Elon too.)

A good tell in the data? Elon v2.0 is far more popular with pick-up truck drivers… than with EV owners!

Let’s just say you should be glad, very glad, you are not Tesla’s head of marketing…

From Michael Murphy

"Elon Musk is more popular with pickup truck drivers than EV drivers"

Source:Michael Smerconish talking to Republican political strategist Michael Murphy. Can you guess which 1 is Michael?

From Michael Smerconish

Mike Murphy's: "Elon Musk is more popular with pickup truck drivers than EV drivers", line, reminds me of then Governor Howard Dean's late 2003 or early 2004 line, when he was running for President and still in contention for the Democratic nomination, about people who would be called Donald Trump voters today: 

"I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks. It’s time that Democrats address guys with gun racks in the back of their trucks". 

From POLITICO

Now, Howard Dean took a lot of heat for that and not just from right-wing, blue-collar Republicans, especially from small towns, who voted for George W. Bush for President in 2000 and 04, as well as some small town blue-collar Democrats who voted for G.W. Bush in both elections as well, for being a cultural bigot, a Northeastern elitist, (or something) who doesn't like rednecks. (To be frank about it) But Mike Murphy, who is a blue-collar Republicans from Detroit, who worked for the Bush's, as well as John McCain, can get away with that. 

Another Mike Murphy quote talking to Michael Smerconish: 

"You are never going to get Bubba (referring to stereotypical Donald Trump voters) to buy a Ford Lightning pickup to run your tools off that would (by the way) beat a lot of cars in a drag race, if he has to put a Save The Whales sticker on the back of his pickup next to the NRA. You are not going to win the virtues thing here. So quit trying!"

I don't claim to be an expert on Elon Musk.... but only because I'm not. I also don't claim to be an expert on: 

Brain surgery

Astro physics

Field hockey... 

But only because I'm not. But what I do know about Elon Musk is very clear: he's not a politician, doesn't want to be. He's a businessman... an oligarch. If he thought he could make a billion dollars producing nothing but vegan foods and other products and thought campaigning to outlaw meat, junk food, and soft drinks, so his vegan business would be even more successful, that's exactly what he would do. Even while still eating cheeseburgers (and I don't what he actually like to eat) with fries and washing that down with chocolate milkshake. And that would make him very popular with the Hippie-Left in America, (to keep it real) even if they founded out that he still eats meat and likes his junk food and soft drinks. 

I think the mistake that the Left (if not far-left) made with Elon Musk pre-MAGA, was to think that he is one of them, because his company makes electric vehicles. 

The Left supporting Elon Musk, was the same mistake that Independents and perhaps even blue-collar Democrats, as well as Arabs, Latinos, and even urban African-Americans who voted for Donald Trump in 24, but are now regretting that: they tried taking their final exam (meaning the 24 presidential election) without doing any of the work and the studying needed to pass that exam. And they all failed miserably and a lot of them are at least starting to regret their votes.

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James Carville: Advice For The Democratic Party

"James Carville says it’s time for Democrats to ''roll over and play dead"

Source:Michael Smerconish talking about James Carville's advice for the Democratic Party.

From Michael Smerconish

"Democratic strategist James Carville called on Democrats to make a "strategic political retreat" in a guest essay for The New York Times on Tuesday, telling members of his party "to play dead."

"Allow the Republicans to crumble beneath their own weight, and make the American people miss us. Only until the Trump administration has spiraled into the low 40s or high 30s in public approval polling percentages should we make like a pack of hyenas and go for the jugular. Until then, I’m calling for a strategic political retreat," he wrote. 

"With no clear leader to voice our opposition and no control in any branch of government, it’s time for Democrats to embark on the most daring political maneuver in the history of our party: roll over and play dead," the strategist continued.

"Carville compared his suggestion to a "tactical pause," and argued the Democrats needed to stop regularly playing defense against the Trump administration's actions.

"It’s a vision move — get out of the hour-to-hour, day-to-day combat where one side (ours) is largely playing defense and struggling to defend politically charged positions (like explaining D.E.I. or persuading voters to care about foreign aid), and take time to regroup, look forward and make decisions about where we want to get to over the next two years," Carville said.

He said Americans were likely not waiting around for lawmakers and commentators to make the same old arguments to criticize the president. 

"They’re tired of it, and our Democratic voters are tired of watching us moan and groan to cover up our impotency out of power. They want us to be smarter than that," he added." 

From Fox News

I apologize if I ever said that Fox News is "completely useless". 

Something else from James Carville's  NYT essay:

"The whole thing is collapsing. The Democratic Party doesn't need an Elizabeth Warren or somebody else pacifying, or advocacy groups in Washington, (which by the way, I wish these people were useless, they're actually worst than useless) they never learn to shut up, and this whole thing... 

Someone who commented on Carville's NTY essay: 

"I don't think we should complain about every decision that Donald Trump makes...

From what I wrote about this on Tuesday in response to the so-called Political Girl Leigh McGowab: 

"See, whatever you think of what Leigh McGown is proposing here, it's the wrong approach, even if you like what she's proposing. At least the politics of it, even if you agree with her ideas. What she's talking about is proposing an alternative to what House Republicans are trying to jam through the House right now, but seem to be short on votes. 

I'm with James Carville on this: 

When you see your arch-enemy is drowning in the ocean. don't throw them a lifeline. Let them drown. 

When you see your arch enemy's house is on fire and no one is there to do anything about it, don't even offer to spit on the fire, let alone dump your own water on it, or call 911. Just let the house burn down. 

Right now, Republicans control The White House and both chambers of Congress, not just the House and White House. They have everything, including the Senate and Supreme Court. They are in complete charge and completely responsible for the nation's welfare as far as what passes and what doesn't... 

From The New Democrat

Look, what do left-wing Democrats expect Chuck Schumer and company to do: 

filibuster every piece of legislation that Republicans try to bring to the floor, just to prevent Republicans from passing anything at all? 

Perhaps threaten government shutdowns unless Trump and company gives the Left everything that they want on every issue on every piece of legislation that is brought up? 

Silly question. Of course the left-wing of the Democratic Party expects the Democratic Leadership to do that. 

Maybe they want Hakeem Jeffries to tell all of his 215 members in the House to walk out every time House Republicans bring a bill up to a floor for vote. No maybe there. That's what the Democrats version of the political escaped mental patients (a phrase that was coined by The New Democrat) expects the Democratic Leadership to do for them.

But, just as Leigh McGowan is wrong about Democrats (who are the minority party both in the House & Senate) need to offer alternatives to the bad legislation that Trump and company are bringing up, so is the rest of the left-wing of the Democratic Party is wrong about how the Democrats should act as the opposition. As the great political humorist P.J. O'Rourke said many times: 

"The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.”

That's exactly what the Trump Administration and the Republican Congress is doing right now: 

They're raising prices on hard-working American families. They're weakening economic and job growth with their tariffs, which also affects the cost of living in this country. 

They're laying off air traffic controllers, right when we're having more plane crashes. 

They're denying emergency disaster relief resources to their own voters in West Virginia (of all states) and North Carolina. You are not going to find another state that drinks Donald Trump's Kool-Aid more than West Virginia.

They're kissing the feet of dictators like Vladimir Putin, while threatening to invade with military force our allies and abandoning our allies, like Canada, Mexico, Europe, and now Ukraine.  

And they're pardoning violent criminals, when crime is going up in this country. 

I guess I part company with James Carville, but only on this point: Democrats still and will continue to oppose the Trump Administration, but in court, every time the President writes another unconstitutional executive order. 

And Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries will not only not deliver a single Democratic vote in either the House or Senate, every time Republicans try to pass something on their own, but they'll lock in all of their 215 members in the House and 47 in the Senate to vote against everything that Republicans try to pass on their own. But as far as offering their support, or offering compromises, or even alternatives, to whatever the President and Republican Congress tries to do on their own... I go back to 1 of my main points from Tuesday: 

When you see your arch-enemy is drowning in the ocean. don't throw them a lifeline. Let them drown. 

When you see your arch enemy's house is on fire and no one is there to do anything about it, don't even offer to spit on the fire, let alone dump your own water on it, or call 911. Just let the house burn down. 

Let MAGA burn our national house down. Hopefully they don't destroy the country. But don't help them do that, or try to get in their way, outside of what's going on in the courts and at the state level. Show American voters this is exactly who you voted for and the consequences of that fateful decision. And tell them and show them there's a better way on the campaign trail and why you deserve to be in power again. 

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Michael Smerconish: American Exceptionalism

Source:Michael Smerconish talking about when America was the greatest. 

"When was America greatest?" 

From Michael Smerconish

"When Donald Trump says we need to ‘make America great again,” most Republicans think about the 1950s.

According to Andrew Van Dam at The Washington Post, Republicans believe that the 1950s was the happiest, safest, most communitarian, and moral society of the last 100 years. They think that the 1950s was the decade with the most reliable news reporting, although they believe that the 1980s was the decade with the least political divisions.

Democrats, as you might guess, answered the questions differently... 

From Current

Just to go on the record on this question; even with America being addicted to new technology and always feeling the need to be seen as up to date on new technology, especially as it relates to their smartphones and feel the need to be seen holding a coffee up, especially while they're on the phone or staring at their phone and this country's addiction to celebrity culture, (perhaps all these issues can be blamed on Millennial's) there's no other time that I rather be living in America and no other country in the world that I rather live in, than America. And I'll get into why. 

But before I get into why I think right now is the best time to be an American and living in America, I want to get into what this whole MAGA (or "Make America Great Again") movement is really about. 

There was a time when the Republican Party was stereotyped as the American patriots, the patriotic party, the people who love America. And you still have plenty of Republicans like that.  But most of them are now Never-Trump'ers. 

People like: 

S.E. Cupp, 

former U.S. Representative's Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Charlie Dent, Ken Buck, and many others who are either still in the House, (because perhaps they're glutens for political punishment) 

as well as current U.S. Senator Mitt Romney 

former Republican governor's John Kasich and Larry Hogan. 

But today thanks to Donald Trump and his MAGA movement, you now have 60-70% (depending on which polls you look at) of the Republican Party now saying that America is no longer a great country. And that they need to: "take back America and give it back to the real Americans" because it's now a country that they no longer recognize. And if you go with Andrew Van Dam article, it's the 1950s and even the 1940s as the two decades they point to as saying that was when America was a great country. 

But if you are a woman of any ethnic or racial background, or any ethnic or racial minority, if you are gay today, would you rather be living in the 1950s or 40s in America, than right now, where you not just have the same constitutional rights and protections as Anglo-Saxon men and other Caucasians, but where those constitutional rights by an large (so system is perfect) are enforced equally under law as the Anglo-Saxons, especially Anglo-Saxon men?

Yes, The American President is a fictional film, but there are times in our lives when even Hollywood can get it right and avoid screwing it up. And to quote President Andrew Shepard (played by Michael Douglas) in that great speech that he gave in that film: 

"America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours." You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Now show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms.

Then you can stand up and sing about the land of the free." 

From American Rhetoric

I know this going to sound partisan, but what actually makes America great right now and has always made America a great country, at least since the 1960s, is what MAGA hates about our great country. 

America is that one country in the world where everyone can make it in America, regardless of our race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexuality, culture, region, etc. If you have the talent and the skills, the character, you'll make it in America. 

No other country in the world has created more freedom, more opportunity, for more people, as well as different kinds of people, as the United States of America. And because of all our advanced freedom for more Americans and people today, no better time to be an American than right here and right now. 

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Michael Smerconish: Robert F. Kennedy JR. For President

Source:Michael Smerconish talking about the news stories that he's interested in.

"Today's Headlines from Smerconish.com - Friday, May 24th 2024" 

From Michael Smerconish

As I wrote about Robert F. Kennedy JR. back in March: 

"As an at best Independent Democrat at this point, whose not in love with the Democratic Party politically, or really anything else, for that matter, I would love to see Robert F. Kennedy JR. run for President as a Libertarian. Why? Because it would just confirm what I, what this blog, and what a lot of other Democrats believe about RFK JR. that he's simply a MAGA man, who at the very least doesn't want Joe Biden to be reelected and perhaps even wants Donald Trump back in The White House, where all their MAGA conspiracy theories and avenues to financially profit for them, would open up." 

From The New Democrat

There are 3 main roadblocks that are and could keep Donald J. Trump from getting back to The White House. (Hell, I wish there were 100, especially with all the traffic and people in Washington) 

The 1st roadblock would be Defendant Don getting convicted of felonies next week in Manhattan. Perhaps as many 1-4 Republicans, not just Democrats and Independents, but 1-4 Republicans don't want, or won't vote for a convicted felon for President of the United States. If there's a large turnout for President this year, losing 10% of the Republican Party, would cost Donald Trump the presidency in 2024. Which is about the same percentage that he lost in 2020, especially in Arizona, Georgia, and perhaps Wisconsin as well.

The 2nd roadblock and I my colleague Kire Schneider mentioned about Nikki Haley yesterday: 

"But as all the Republicans on this post have already said, Nikki Haley voters, are just people who voted against Donald Trump. And I would add they are not members of her political fan club. Unlike Trump, she doesn't have her own political cult." 

From The New Democrat

Nikki Haley's voters are not Nikki Haley's voters. Which I know sounds like a car is not a car, a house is not a house, etc. But what that means is they didn't vote for her by and large (exceptions to every rule) because they love Nikki Haley. They voted for her because she's a normal Republican (at least pre-Donald Trump) and she was running against Donald Trump. 

The Republicans who voted for Nikki Haley this year, are center-right, fiscally and economically conservative, hawkish, pro-Constitution, rule of law, Republican voters. Not people who want to take America back to the 1950s and 40s, where it seemed very unlikely that a woman of any background, or any minority, would ever even be thinking about running for President of the United States. Nikki Haley voters are traditional, center-right, Republican voters, who many cases voted for Joe Biden for President in 2020 and did their part in costing then President Trump reelection. 

I've already touched on Robert F. Kennedy JR. But as Michael Smerconish said so himself (maybe he should be working for the Kennedy Campaign with all the free publicity that he gives him on his show) both Bob Kennedy and Don Trump will be at the Libertarian Party convention this weekend. 

RFK and DJT are going after the same voters. We're talking about anti-government, conspiracy minded people, who in some cases have Libertarian leanings, but in many more cases have MAGA leanings. Where at least the militants in the MAGA movement, want to take down the current U.S. Government and replace it with their own nationalistic form of government, that would be there to serve Donald J. Trump's every need and "take back America" to give it back to the "real Americans", as they see themselves.

Bob Kennedy might try to run as some whacked-out, hippie revolutionary, whose still addicted to drugs and has lost more brain cells and has more brain damage that he's even admitted too, and make Bernie and Liz, along with Alex Cortez, and the rest of the so-called Squad in the House, and Jill Stein even, look like flaming moderates. And he would do that just to take votes away from Joe Biden, if that's the campaign that he runs. But he's a MAGA man. He''ll be at the Libertarian Convention, perhaps even seeking their nomination. Not at the Green Party Convention going after the hippie-lefty vote for President. 

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Kasie Hunt: Michael Smerconish On CNN This Morning

Source:Michael Smerconish talking to CNN anchor Kasie Hunt. You have to get up really early in the morning, or be a hardcore insomniac, to talk to Kasie Hunt on TV in the morning.

"TRUMP HAS 'NO PROBLEM' WITH RFK JR JOINING DEBATE. Smerconish on CNN This Morning with Kasie Hunt" 

From Michael Smerconish

As I wrote about Robert F. Kennedy JR. back in March: 

"As an at best Independent Democrat at this point, whose not in love with the Democratic Party politically, or really anything else, for that matter, I would love to see Robert F. Kennedy JR. run for President as a Libertarian. Why? Because it would just confirm what I, what this blog, and what a lot of other Democrats believe about RFK JR. that he's simply a MAGA man, who at the very least doesn't want Joe Biden to be reelected and perhaps even wants Donald Trump back in The White House, where all their MAGA conspiracy theories and avenues to financially profit for them, would open up." 

From The New Democrat

As I wrote about Robert F. Kennedy JR. back in April: 

"As far as RFK JR. telling CNN anchor Erin Burnett, who I'm a fan of and think she does a great job and is an excellent interviewer and really doesn't take any junk (to put it mildly) from her guests, once again Bob JR. is just trying to blame President Biden for something that he can't even try to defend." 

From The New Democrat

As my colleague Kire Schneider wrote about Robert F. Kennedy's JR's. braindead presidential campaign last week: 

"As far as Robert F. Kennedy JR: The New Democrat has been pretty clear about him from the beginning. He's a better looking, more intelligent, perhaps healthier, younger (even though he's 70 years old)  Donald Trump. But now we know he also has brain damage, which explains his braindead presidential campaign. (Pun intended) And maybe he's looking for a way to get out of this election, because he's now seeing polling that his campaign is hurting Donald Trump. Which he doesn't want and is looking for a way to get out of this, before he hurts Trump even more. " 

From The New Democrat

I just want to respond to a point that Michael Smerconish made to Kasie Hunt first. 

Michael Smerconish: "Donald Trump feeds off an audience. There won't be an audience for these debates." 

How did that work for then President Trump in 2020? He was down even in the Electoral College polling going into the first presidential debate against Joe Biden and didn't get beat in those debates, because he was too busy beating himself. Joe Biden won both debates simply by not being Donald Trump and coming off as a normal presidential candidate. You could argue that Joe was going to win the election anyway. But those debates might have cost him Georgia, Arizona, maybe even Wisconsin as well.

As far as the Tom Brady celebrity roast: Kasie Hunt had the perfect point there: "I think he made a lot of money off it." Which is what this really about. 

Brady is probably a bored celebrity, narcissistic billionaire, whose under 50 (who'l hopefully never run for President because of that) and he can just tell his kids: "Celebrity events like this and my football career, is what's putting through college and giving you hefty trust funds. So grow up and take it like a man."

If you are Joe Biden, the only thing you want to do, is beat Donald J. Trump. Who'll hopefully be Convict Don before the conventions, not just the election. The last thing you want to do is to be screwing around with Donald Trump's younger, better looking, hipper, smarter, physically stronger, little political brother, Robert F. Kennedy JR. Whose simply running for President as Donald Trump's political wingman or blocker, whose simply trying to keep Joe Biden from winning reelection. I mean Bob Kennedy isn't even qualified for the debates right now and isn't on enough state ballots to win the election. Don't give him a bigger platform than he deserves.

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Michael Smerconish & Jeffrey Toobin: Michael Cohen On Cross Examination

Source:Michael Serconish talking about Defendant Don & his one-time lawyer for 10 years, who worked for Mr. Trump at Trump Organization, in Manhattan, New York, Michael Cohen. DJT obviously liked & trusted Cohen enough to have him as his personal attorney for 10 years.

"Crossed" 

From Michael Smerconish

"Donald Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche began his confrontation with Michael Cohen by reminding the former fixer of his own words. CNN’s Anderson Cooper and his political panel discuss." 

Source:CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.

From CNN

Just to talk about what Michael Smerconish said for a minute, perhaps a paragraph and then I'll get into the CNN analysis as well. 

Michael Smerconish is already talking like he's expecting a felony conviction here. He tries to play himself as this independent contrarian who always talks as if: "We just don't know what's going on here" and tries to argue issues from both sides. So he speaks in code a lot and you have to try to dig though that to figure what he actually thinks about these issues. But he's already saying: "Would it really matter if Donald Trump is convicted? Would that affect the presidential election at all?" I don't think he's talking like that, if he's expecting an acquittal or a hung jury. 

As far as the CNN crew, Michael Moore (no, not that Michael Moore) whose a former U.S. Attorney in Georgia, is arguing that the Manhattan District Attorney hasn't proven their felony charges against Donald Trump, because they haven't proven intent on DJT's part to commit the election and business fraud crimes. But the fact is, Trump and company tried to cover up this whole scheme: 

David Pecker cooperated with the Manhattan DA to avoid prison time himself. 

Michael Cohen went to prison for lying about his role in this scheme. 

The Manhattan DA has already established motive for this scheme which was to prevent the public from finding out about it, before the 2016 election. Not because DJT was worried about his wife and son finding out about it. 

And then Donald Trump was in on all of this and not just approved of the plan, but made the payments to Stephanie Clifford (also known as Stormy Daniels) and Karen McDougal. 

You can even argue that the Manhattan DA has proven money laundering on this, because DJT and company were hiding money to be used for an illegal campaign contribution to the Trump Campaign.

Anytime that you can prove that a criminal defendant was trying to cover up crimes, perhaps their own crimes, that in of itself is proof of knowledge of guilt on their part. Because you are showing to the jury that the defendant was worried about being prosecuted for what they were doing and didn't want to get caught, so they tried to cover it up. I think that this case is the perfect example of the cover up of the crime being worst than the crime itself.

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Michael Smerconish Takes On The Stormy Testimony

Source:Michael Smerconish talking about Defendant Don't Stormy day. If you are going to cheat on your wife, while she's pregnant with your son, why not with a porn chick?You can see why he never wanted this story to ever go out, especially during his political career.

"Devil in the Details" 

From Michael Smerconish

"Adult film star Stormy Daniels dished out salacious details of her alleged sexual encounter with former President Donald Trump in 2006 from the witness stand on Tuesday, describing how they met at a celebrity golf tournament and what she says happened when she went to Trump’s Lake Tahoe hotel room.

In a mostly casual and conversational tone, Daniels recounted details from the floors and furniture in Trump’s hotel room to the contents of his toiletry kit in the bathroom. At one point in court, Daniels threw back her arm and lifted her leg in the witness box to re-create the moment she says Trump posed on his hotel bed for her, stripped down to his undergarments.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference held at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida on February 08, 2024... 

From CNN

From what I wrote about this yesterday: 

"Now that the Manhattan District Attorney is at let's say the 5 yard line (to use a football reference) as far as establishing that Donald Trump not only knew about the payments to Stephanie Clifford (also known as Stormy Daniels) and Karen McDougal, but why they were made, the prosecution now wants to establish the affairs actually happened as well. So the defense can't argue that their client was being extorted. ..

From The New Democrat

As my colleague Kire Schneider wrote about this yesterday: 

"If you are familiar with the phrase details matter: well, you should be because they do. You don't just have Stephanie Clifford on the witness stand that she had an affair with Mr. Trump, or that she banged him (to be frank) but you have her up there talking about exactly how they met and what they did that night according to her. 

Stephanie Clifford gave the jury deep details about how Mr. Trump and one of his assistants got her up to his suite and that he wanted (my words) like  the 16 year old guy whose never got any before, trying to impress the hot girl in school, by trying to look like Hugh Hefner with his white robe. With her basically telling him that he looked ridiculous and asking him to put a shirt on. As well as her asking him... 

From The New Democrat

I just wanted to talk about the CNN commentary from last night first and then I'll get into Michael Smerconish's take on this, which isn't mush different from what they were saying. 

If you include the anchor Anderson Cooper, they had 8 people on his main panel: 

Laura Coates, Kaitlan Collins, Ellie Honig, John Berman, Abbie Phillip, Jeffrey Toobin, and Arthur Aidala. Coates, Honig, Toobin, and Aidala, are all lawyers. 

Of the eight panelists and the 3 lawyers on the panel, only Arthur Aidala was arguing that the prosecution should even bring Stephanie Clifford (also known as Stormy Daniels) to the witness stand. 

Laura Coates was saying: "I don't know if you either bring her up at all. Maybe in the beginning of the case. And go to the documents and the document witnesses after." Right, start this case off with the porn chick and leave the jury with her as their first impression of this case. 

Arthur Aidala whose a defense attorney from Brooklyn, whose been arguing for three weeks now, that there's no crime here, was the only lawyer arguing that Manhattan had to call Stephanie Clifford  up, because without her, you have no motive. And the defense could just argue that Donald Trump was being extorted by Stephanie Clifford and company. 

Again, details matter. Maybe they could've brought her up after Michael Cohen, but hopefully not closed with her. But without a real reason for the hush money, as well as proving that Donald Trump knew about these payments and signed off on then and they were about protecting his 2016 presidential campaign, the Manhattan District Attorney has no case. 

This jury now knows that Donald Trump had an affair with Stephanie Clifford exactly when she said they did. And their damn close to knowing and probably are already assuming, that he paid her off in 2016, to protect his presidential campaign. Which would make him guilty of 2 campaign finance felonies in New York: An illegal campaign contribution to his own campaign and failure to disclose that campaign contribution. 

And to what Michael Smerconish was saying here: ( Mr. Independent, straight down the middle commentator) He was basically just backing up what CNN was saying last night. With his sidekick CC there saying: "Don't details matter? Doesn't the jury need to know about the affair and why the payments were made?" Basically contradicting her boss on his radio show. 

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Michael Smerconish: Doggonit Kristi Noem

Source:Michael Smerconish talking about Governor Kristie Noem's "dog day afternoon".

"Dog Day Afternoon #pets #dog #news" 

From Michael Smerconish 

The Kristie Noem story about her dog, is similar to Senator Katie Britt's State of the Union response back in March. And this is what I wrote about that about 6 weeks ago: 

"Now having said on that, either Senator Britt got some really, horrible advice, but she took it anyway, or she’s simply not ready for prime time. Donald Trump and the rest of the MAGA wing of what’s left of the Republican Party, is getting buried by Democrats when it comes to female voters. As much as MAGA wants people to think it’s still the 1950s, or they want to take us back there, the average American woman today works out of the home." 

From The New Democrat 

I have my alternative theory to why Governor Kristi Noem personally leaked this doggone (pun intended) story about herself. But I'll give you the conventional "wisdom" first. 

What Michael Smerconish and company seem to believe is that Governor Noem was simply trying to get ahead of this story. Perhaps a South Dakota political reporter was about to release this story about her and maybe that reporter could back it up as well. 

Another conventional theory about this story, is that Governor Noem wants to be Donald Trump's vice presidential nominee so badly, that she believes the only way to do that, is to go all in with MAGA and look like the biggest badass (or whatever the MAGA term is) to the point that she wants people to believe that she'll murder her own animals, to protect her property. Even if they're a lot more humane ways to dealing with difficult animals, especially your own pets. 

When Senator Katie Britt gave her response to President Biden's SOTU back in March, one of the commentators from the center-right The Bulwark podcast, Jonathan V. Last, had an interesting theory for why Senator Britt bombed so badly. He said he thought it was intentional on her part because she doesn't want to be Donald Trump's VP nominee. But she's from Alabama, which is like a state capital in Redneckistan, the heart of the MAGA movement and she doesn't want the MAGA followers to know that. 

My theory for why Kristi Noem decided to do this, is she's a much smarter politician than she seems to want anyone whose not inside of her South Dakota circle to know. I think she believes that Donald Trump is a loser, whose going down, because he's going to lose overwhelmingly with women. And even lose too many Republicans with all his legal baggage, including the fact he could be a two-time convicted felon before election day in November and that will make it too hard for him to beat President Biden in November. And she doesn't want to be part of that electoral catastrophe. And she sure as hell doesn't want to get blamed for it. But that's my theory. 

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Michael Smerconish: College Unrest

Source:Michael Smerconish talking about the college Israel-Palestine protests.

"Sorry Grads college politics" 

From Michael Smerconish

I've been looking for an opportunity to get into this discussion for at least the 2nd half of this week. But David Pecker really exposed my interest (pun intended) in Donald Trump's porn star hush money case in New York. 

I think Michael Smerconish hit the nail on the head when he posed the question: "Are these protests at Columbia and Southern California genuine, or is someone astroturfing them?" Meaning do these protestors really hate Israel and what Israel is doing in Gaza right now, or is someone ginning them up and getting to do these protests, to bring attention to their political movement? 

Considering that Columbia University is not a school that's known for producing professional athletes. I mean the Lions football program is known for winless seasons and they compete in the Ivy League. You are talking about a lot of wealthy, overprivileged students, who are the sons and daughters of politicians, doctors, lawyers, journalists, some of the most successful and wealthy people in America. 

And young people, especially overprivileged young people are very impressionable to begin with. Especially with leftists who are cool and are hipsters and know how to get young people's attention. So you have all these young overprivileged students, seeing all these people, especially children and women, suffering in Gaza, mostly because of the Hamas regime there, but also because of the Israeli military as well and the students are reacting to that. 

But then the other part is, when you are young, taking a stand against the establishment and even risking your own future, is considered cool. Even if you don't know what you are doing and what you are supposed to taking a stand against. 

Just being there is a social political statement for these folks and they can say: "Yeah, I'm down with Palestine. Fuck the Jews. From the river to the see, Palestine will be free." Not having any idea what that actually means. And apparently having no idea that a statement like that puts you in the same political company as Neo-Nazis. 

"But hey, when you are in your early 20s, it's being cool and popular which is what counts. Not intelligent and successful."  

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Michael Smerconish: David Pecker Exposes The National Enquirer

Source:Michael Smerconish with a look at Donald Trump's tabloid political world.

Source:The New Democrat

"Enquiring Minds.... 

From Michael Smerconish

"David Pecker, the former publisher of the National Enquirer, testified at Donald Trump's trial Tuesday that the tabloid completely manufactured a negative story in 2016 about the father of Sen. Ted Cruz, of Texas, who was then Trump's rival for the GOP presidential nomination.

The paper had published a photo allegedly showing Cruz's father, Rafael Cruz, with Lee Harvey Oswald handing out pro-Fidel Castro pamphlets in New Orleans in 1963, not long before Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy.

Trump repeatedly referred to the story on the campaign trail and in interviews.

“I mean, what was he doing — what was he doing with Lee Harvey Oswald shortly before the death? Before the shooting?” Trump said in an interview with Fox News in May 2016. “It’s horrible.”

Manhattan prosecutor Joshua Steinglass asked Pecker about the story's origins during the trial Tuesday in Manhattan. Pecker said that then-National Enquirer editor-in-chief Dylan Howard and the tabloid's research department got involved, and Pecker indicated that they faked the photo that was the foundation for the story.

“We mashed the photos and the different picture with Lee Harvey Oswald. And mashed the two together. And that’s how that story was prepared — created I would say," Pecker said on the witness stand.

Asked by Steinglass whether Cruz had gained popularity in the presidential race at the time, Pecker said, “I believe so.”

The revelation came up as the prosecution focused on negative articles that were published by the tabloid about Trump's Republican opponents at the time. Pecker explained that it was Michael Cohen, Trump's personal lawyer, who would orchestrate the planting of these stories.

Pecker said Cohen would call and say they'd like his publication to run an article on a certain candidate, adding that Cohen would then send him a piece about Cruz, for example, and the National Enquirer "would embellish it from there."

Pecker suggested that Trump was directly involved in the process, too. He said that the negative stories about Trump's opponents were published as part of an arrangement that was struck in 2015 at a Trump Tower meeting that also included a directive to write positive stories about the real estate mogul." 

From NBC News

Sorry for the tabloid title of this post. Actually, that's a lie. I'm definitely not sorry for the title. But what's a little lie anyway when you are talking about a tabloid publication anyway? Lies for tabloids are what food are for restaurants, gas is for cars, lawyers, politicians, fundamentalist preachers even for prostitutes, it's how they stay in business. 

I think the David Pecker revelations (I'm still having a hard time writing his last name without laughing and I'm 47 years old) is a perfect example of why American voters are stereotyped as stupid. At least gullible because here you had this well-known, national tabloid magazine, that promoted stories about Donald J. Trump back in 2015-16, to get him into The White House and you had 10s of millions of American voters, who simply bought all of those garbage stories. 

10s of millions of American voters. probably mostly Independents, as well as some blue-collar Democrats, who perhaps weren't ready for a female President of the United States, bought those garbage stories, as if they were buying an 1985 Ford Escort, thinking that car was as good as a Mercedes SEL, or a Jaguar sedan, etc. Without doing any of their homework: "Hey, if The National Enquirer says that Ted Cruz's father was involved in the JFK assassination, it must be true." 

And so yesterday, you have the Manhattan prosecutors laying out exactly what The National Enquirer was doing in partnership with Donald J. Trump, with the man who was in charge of this entire scheme, their publisher at the time David Pecker, exposing (pun in intended) this whole operation. And they have all the texts, the emails, the phone calls even, to back up all of Mr. Pecker's claims here on what they were doing for Mr. Trump.

Michael Smerconish: Robert F. Kennedy JR. As Donald Trump's Running Mate

Source:Michael Smerconish- DJT/RFKJR 2024? Why not. They're both professional MAGA men who don't seem to believe in the rule of law or American democracy.

"TRUMP/RFK JR. 2024?" 

From Michael Smerconish

"Robert F. Kennedy Jr. chose tech attorney and entrepreneur Nicole Shanahan to be his running mate.

Shanahan, who has never run for office before, donated the maximum amount to Kennedy’s campaign and $4 million to the chief super PAC backing his bid to air a retro-themed Super Bowl commercial. In addition to backing American Values 2024, she also gave $500,000 to another super PAC backing Kennedy, Common Sense PAC. Both donations were made through an LLC, Planeta Management.

Kennedy said he was searching for a running mate who understood technology, government agencies’ vulnerability to corruption, the need for secure borders and an athlete.

“So that is why I’m so proud to introduce to you the next vice president of the United States, my fellow lawyer, a brilliant scientist, technologist, a fierce warrior mom, Nicole Shanahan,” Kennedy said in Oakland, California.

Shanahan was raised in Oakland by a mother who was a Chinese immigrant and a white American father who suffered from mental illness. Tickets for the announcement event were sold for $2, $24 or $500.

Kennedy has been searching for a vice presidential candidate to join his independent bid since quitting the Democratic Party primary last October. The short list was wide-ranging, including NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and ex-Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

Now that he’s named the 38-year-old Shanahan as his running mate, the campaign can begin collecting ballot access signatures in about 20 more states.

Shanahan said she’s passionate about fighting chronic disease in the U.S. by eliminating toxins in food and water and electromagnetic pollution as well as doing different studies on pharmaceuticals and vaccines.

“There is only one candidate who takes the chronic disease epidemic seriously, and it is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and I will be his ally,” Shanahan said.

Shanahan said Kennedy will be focused on corruption in government agencies while she applies her skills as a technologist to the issue. 

Shanahan, who is also a fellow at the Stanford Center for Legal Informatics, has a long history of political giving, backing progressive California Rep. Ro Khanna’s campaigns as well as making a contribution to President Joe Biden and a five-figure donation to the Democratic National Committee in 2020 after supporting Marianne Williamson’s long-shot bid during the primary. The tech entrepreneur also donated to Hillary Clinton’s campaign in 2016.

Kennedy said Shanahan has also now left the Democratic Party. As independents, they will face Biden and former President Donald Trump, the presumptive major party nominees, in the November general election.

But since Kennedy and Shanahan are both California residents, they will now be unable to accept California’s 54 electoral college votes should they win the state in November unless one of them moves his or her residency to another state, according to the Constitution’s 12th Amendment.

As Kennedy’s team was announcing his running mate, Democrats and allied groups also seized on Kennedy’s big day.

The DNC paid for a mobile billboard highlighting a mega donor, Tim Mellon, who has donated to both the super PACs supporting Kennedy and Trump. Protesters handed out fliers across the street featuring a QR code that went to a website that read, “Kennedy for Measles,” pointing out the dangers of his anti-vaccine positions. And Clear Cho ice PAC, a newly formed group to oppose third party candidates, launched a negative website that calls Kennedy’s candidacy “dangerous” and asks voters to “Reject RFK. Stop Donald Trump.”

“RFK Jr. has no path to victory, and his vice presidential selection does nothing to change that,” Pete Kavanaugh, co-founder of Clear Choice PAC, said in a statement.

Shanahan’s wealth and ability to financially support the campaign’s operations — including gathering petition signatures to get on the ballot and potential litigation — are advantageous to the Kennedy ticket. Kennedy denied in a News Nation interview that Shanahan’s wealth was a factor in his decision making.

Shanahan was last in national headlines when The Wall Street Journal reported that she had an affair with Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla who was also being courted for a donation by American Values. Both she and Musk denied the affair, which allegedly took place in 2021. She and her then-husband, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, divorced. The Journal reported that Brin also asked his advisers to sell his personal investments in Musk’s companies.

In 2019, Shanahan founded Bia-Echo, a nonprofit foundation. Its mission includes “reproductive longevity & equality, criminal justice reform and a healthy & livable planet,” according to its website.

Bia-Echo Foundation has only ever had one donor, according to three years of financial disclosure forms: Brin. The forms disclosed that Brin made his eight-figure donation through shares of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, in 2020. The following year, his contribution came as Tesla shares valued at about $25 million. Brin did not make a donation in 2022.

In a lengthy profile with People Magazine, Shanahan again denied the affair with Musk and said the two instead talked about autism treatments for Shanahan and Brin’s young daughter, Echo. Shanahan said she frequently has conversations like this in the tech world. “Elon was another person in this group of people. There’s almost this generational ecosystem and it’s a community. You run ideas past each other and you ask questions,” she told the magazine.

Shanahan added finding a cure to autism to Bia-Echo’s work, in the People interview. She said she spends 60 percent of her time researching autism.

“I am hopeful of helping my daughter overcome her autism, whatever that might look like, whether it be in five years not having a diagnosis anymore, or having all of the tools to navigate the challenges that her diagnosis has produced in her life,” Shanahan said.

In addition to scientists and doctors, Shanahan said she learns about autism interventions “with greater accuracy than any published medical paper” from mothers raising autistic children. Kennedy has shared a similar sentiment about mothers when describing how he became skeptical of vaccine safety.

Kennedy has falsely claimed that there is a link between mercury content in vaccines and disease, including autism, publishing a book on the subject and starting a nonprofit that engages in litigation on behalf of people who believe they’ve been injured by a vaccine.

Advocacy against vaccines and vaccine mandates following the Covid-19 pandemic have bolstered Kennedy’s public profile in recent years and given a boost to his grassroots campaign strategy.

“I want her to represent the mothers who struggle to protect their children from the bad chemicals, the pharmaceuticals and bad food,” Kennedy said of Shanahan to great applause from the crowd. “As vice president, she will stand between them and Big Ag, Big Pharma, the chemical industry, the processed food industry, and the government regulators who are colluding to poison our kids for profit.”

Despite Bia-Echo’s mission statement, its financial disclosures show the foundation has invested more in financial assets than in grant giving.

In 2022, the latest available year in online records, Bia-Echo reported owning $13.7 million in U.S. and state government securities and $12.2 million in corporate stocks and bonds. It reported $0 in grants, gifts or contributions to other organizations." 

Source:POLITICO- Independent MAGA presidential candidate Nicole Shanahan.

From POLITICO 

As I wrote about this back in March: 

"As an at best Independent Democrat at this point, whose not in love with the Democratic Party politically, or really anything else, for that matter, I would love to see Robert F. Kennedy JR. run for President as a Libertarian. Why? Because it would just confirm what I, what this blog, and what a lot of other Democrats believe about RFK JR. that he's simply a MAGA man, who at the very least doesn't want Joe Biden to be reelected and perhaps even wants Donald Trump back in The White House, where all their MAGA conspiracy theories and avenues to financially profit for them, would open up." 

From The New Democrat 

If Bob Kennedy JR. was anti-Trump, he wouldn't spend all of his opposition campaigning against President Joe Biden. U.S. Representative Dean Phillips ran against the President in the Democratic primaries. Former Democrat and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang said that the Democratic Party needed to nominate someone other than Joe Biden for President in 2024. But there's a big difference here. Both Representative Phillips and Mr. Yang are going to vote for the President in the fall. And would probably speak in favor of him, if they were called to do that. 

Unlike Bob Kennedy, who once said that he would be honored to be Donald Trump's vice presidential nominee and has flirted with running for President of the Libertarian Party, which are now filled with Libertarian populists, who are least are leaning towards Donald Trump because they share the same conspiracy theories and hatred for the "deep state." Kennedy is simply running for President to take votes away from President Biden and make it easier for Mr. Trump to win the election in November. 

So if you are the Democratic National Committee, the Biden Campaign, and the Never-Trump wing of the Republican Party, who are establishment Conservative Republicans, like The Bulwark, The Lincoln Project, groups like that, your mission (if you choose to accept it) is to define Bob Kennedy, before Kennedy can define himself. 

The Democrats and what's left of the center-right of the Republican Party, need to define Kennedy as the man whose opposed to all vaccines, who thinks the Jan 6. rioters are American patriots and are now political hostages, that Russia is really our friend and not enemy, etc. Before Kennedy can run like left-winger whose so far-left, that he can make Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Jill Stein, as well as "The Squad" in the House, look like flaming moderates. And he would run that far-left-wing campaign, if he even got on enough ballots, just to hurt President Biden and get Donald Trump back in The White House. 

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Michael Smerconish: Representative Alexandria O. Cortez VS AI

Source:Michael Smerconish talking about U.S. Representative Alexandria O. Cortez's plan to wipeout artificial porn. And yes, I mean to make fun of this. 

"AOC V. AI PORN" 

From Michael Smerconish

"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was in a car talking with her staffers about legislation and casually scrolling through her X mentions when she saw the photo. It was the end of February, and after spending most of the week in D.C., she was looking forward to flying down to Orlando to see her mom after a work event. But everything left her mind once she saw the picture: a digitally altered image of someone forcing her to put her mouth on their genitals. Adrenaline coursed through her, and her first thought was “I need to get this off my screen.” She closed out of it, shaken.

“There’s a shock to seeing images of yourself that someone could think are real,” the congresswoman tells me. It’s a few days after she saw the disturbing deepfake, and we’re waiting for our food in a corner booth of a retro-style diner in Queens, New York, near her neighborhood. She’s friendly and animated throughout our conversation, maintaining eye contact and passionately responding to my questions. When she tells me this story, though, she slows down, takes more pauses and plays with the delicate rings on her right hand. “As a survivor of physical sexual assault, it adds a level of dysregulation,” she says. “It resurfaces trauma, while I’m trying to — in the middle of a fucking meeting.”

The violent picture stayed in Ocasio-Cortez’s head all day. 

“There are certain images that don’t leave a person, they can’t leave a person,” she says. “It’s not a question of mental strength or fortitude — this is about neuroscience and our biology.” She tells me about scientific reports she’s read about how it’s difficult for our brains to separate visceral images on a phone from reality, even if we know they are fake. “It’s not as imaginary as people want to make it seem. It has real, real effects not just on the people that are victimized by it, but on the people who see it and consume it.”

“And once you’ve seen it, you’ve seen it,” Ocasio-Cortez says. “It parallels the same exact intention of physical rape and sexual assault, [which] is about power, domination, and humiliation. Deepfakes are absolutely a way of digitizing violent humiliation against other people... 

From Rolling Stone

As someone whose never been sexually assaulted (but that might only be because I've been over 6'0 and 200 pounds for most of my adult life) I doh't know how Representative Alexandria Cortez's experience with this has affected her. Plus, I've never met the woman, I don't live in New York, I come John F. Kennedy wing of the Democratic Party, instead of the Henry Wallace/George McGovern wing of the party, which is where she's from. Other than her left-wing politics, I don't know her very well at all.

But I guess I have a few points about this: 

If this had happened to Representative Lauren Boebert, (Republican, Colorado) or Representative Marjorie T. Greene (Republican, Georgia) or Representative Elise Stefanik (Republican, New York) or any other female member of the MAGA movement, would anyone outside of the MAGA movement actually care a lick (or whatever word you prefer) about this? I seriously doubt it. I know I wouldn't. 

Seriously, think about this: if this had happened to the MAGA women in the House that I just mentioned, think about how pop culture and the late shows (which are overwhelmingly Democratic) would handle that. They would make fun of them over and over try to make them look like pornographic hypocrites: 

"Online porn is an evil that must be wiped out and punished by God. Except when we do it. Because when we do it, Jesus wants us too." 

Just as someone whose a Liberal, I've never been a fan of unenforceable laws, even if the intentions are good. If someone takes pictures of someone else without their knowledge and uses them to make them look like a pornstar or something online, we have civil courts for that. 

There are a lot of challenges and a lot of things that Americans have to put up with living in this free society. Liberal democracy is never free. It always comes with a lot of risks, as well as opportunities and rewards. Which means Americans have a lot of freedom to be complete idiots with their own lives, short of hurting of hurting innocent people with what they're doing. 

If someone thinks risking their paycheck at a casino or a horse track, is a good investment to pay off their mortgage, it's their money. 

And if people need online porn to get off, because they can't get that any other way, so be it. Just as long as they're not violating other people's freedom and privacy with what they're doing. 

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Michael Smerconish: Robert F. Kennedy JR. - Erin Burnett Interview

Source:Michael Smerconish talking about President Joe Biden & the 2 presidential candidates who are running to defeat him.

Source:The New Democrat

"Who's The Biggest Threat? Biden Trump RFKJR 2024 elections"

From Michael Smerconish

"Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argued Monday that President Joe Biden is a greater threat to democracy than former President Donald Trump.

His argument made on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” centered around being blocked on social media platforms during the Biden administration, which he labeled as an effort to “censor political speech” and undermine the First Amendment.

“I can make the argument that President Biden is the much worse threat to democracy, and the reason for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history – the first president in history that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech, so to censor his opponent,” he said. 

Kennedy pointed to his removal from social media platforms, which he attributes to pressure from the Biden administration, as evidence of the president’s efforts to censor political speech.

Kennedy’s Instagram account was suspended in 2021 “for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines” but was reinstated last year shortly after he announced his presidential campaign. Meta, Instagram’s parent company, cited his White House bid as the reason for restoring Kennedy’s account in a statement... 

From CNN 

I talked about this last month and I still believe this: 

"As an at best Independent Democrat at this point, whose not in love with the Democratic Party politically, or really anything else, for that matter, I would love to see Robert F. Kennedy JR. run for President as a Libertarian. Why? Because it would just confirm what I, what this blog, and what a lot of other Democrats believe about RFK JR. that he's simply a MAGA man, who at the very least doesn't want Joe Biden to be reelected and perhaps even wants Donald Trump back in The White House, where all their MAGA conspiracy theories and avenues to financially profit for them, would open up." 

From The New Democrat

First of all, every time I hear Robert F. Kennedy JR. speaking about anything, my ears hurt. And it's not just because he's basically a professional conspiracy theorist at this point late in his life, after being a very successful environmental lawyer for most of his career before that and an excellent spokesman for the environment in this country. 

But it's not just that and I don't want to sound like I'm making fun of the man, especially when I already feel sorry for him and his family is embarrassed by him, but he always sounds like he's got a sore throat, or he's one of those U.S. senators whose just coming off a 24 hour straight filibuster, with no water, to block an appropriations bill or something. I'm not sure how ever his audience understands him. He's very tough on the ears from a physical perspective and not just what he has to say, which he generally never even tries to back up, let alone able to. 

As far as RFK JR. telling CNN anchor Erin Burnett, who I'm a fan of and think she does a great job and is an excellent interviewer and really doesn't take any junk (to put it mildly) from her guests, once again Bob JR. is just trying to blame President Biden for something that he can't even try to defend. 

1st of all, Meta is a private company. If they block you, it's their choice. This has nothing to do with the U.S. Government, or any other country. 

I know Bob Kennedy is new to government and politics and really has no experience whatsoever in government. But the President of the United States (regardless of who the President is) does not run private companies. 

Instagram which is a division of Meta, blocked RFK JR. back in 2021, because of his conspiracy theories that he was throwing around having to do with COVID. The U.S. Government doesn't run Instagram or any other private social media network. They had nothing to do with RFK JR. being blocked.