“The Washington Post editorial this morning essentially equating Biden’s questionable pardons with Trump’s outrageous Jan. 6 pardons was unconscionable,” David Maraniss, a 1993 Pulitzer Prize winner who has been with the paper nearly 50 years, wrote on Bluesky. “The newspaper I’ve been part of for 48 years has utterly lost its soul.”

Maraniss didn’t link to the editorial in question, but he appears to be referring to one actually published late Tuesday by Jason Willick, titled “The Biden-Trump pardons show collapsing executive restraint.”

Among its arguments, the op-ed says “it’s debatable which president’s abuse of the pardon power on Monday… was more damaging,” and describes them as “tit-for-tat escalations.”

While it does refer to Trump’s mass-pardons for Jan.6 insurrectionists “indefensible,” it largely treats Biden’s preemptive pardons of people Trump has threatened to persecute with state power as, effectively, morally equivalent.

Maraniss didn’t follow up on the comment, and as of this writing he has not announced he is resigning from the paper. But it’s not the first time he’s called out his employer in such direct terms. In October, after owner Jeff Bezos killed the Washington Post’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, Maraniss wrote on Twitter, “Once again but this time more than ever I am embarrassed for my newspaper. The decision in this of all years to not endorse when democracy is on the line is contemptible.”

“The paper I’ve loved working at for 47 years is dying in darkness,” Maraniss added, referring to slogan it adopted during Donald Trump’s first term, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

And he’s far from the only WaPo vet to revolt as Bezos forces the paper in a decidedly conservative, clearly pro-Trump direction. Among them was columnist Michele Norris, who called the decision to spike the Harris endorsement “a terrible mistake & an insult to the paper’s own longstanding standard.”

Editor at large Robert Kagan also resigned, while writer Molly Roberts and Pultizer Prize-winning journalist David Hoffman both resigned from the board in protest. And the Post’s most famous alumni, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, condemned the decision strongly.

More recently, longtime WaPo editorial cartoonist Ann Telnaes resigned on Jan. 3 after editors pulled a cartoon that criticized Bezos.

Bezos has steadfastly stuck by the stark changes he’s imposed on the Post since last fall, enacted at the same time the billionaire visibly became one of Trump’s most prominent courtiers. But the changes have been a disaster for the paper, cratering subscriptions and revenues.

The post Washington Post Editor Slams Paper for Op-Ed ‘Essentially Equating’ Biden, Trump Pardons: ‘Utterly Lost Its Soul’ appeared first on TheWrap.

The complaints were filed by The Center for American Rights, a self-described “nonpartisan public interest law firm.” The firm accused ABC Philadelphia’s WPVI-TV of favoring Vice President Kamala Harris when the network hosted the September presidential debate, New York’s WCBS-TV for “news distortion” for the way Harris’ “60 Minutes” interview was edited, and New York’s WNBC-TV of violating the FCC’s equal time rule when Harris appeared on “Saturday Night Live” during the weekend leading up to the presidential election.

In her decision last week, Rosenworcel said that the complaints had aimed to “weaponize” the agency and were “at odds” with the First Amendment. In the order denying the complaints against WPVI and WCBS, the FCC said that the First Amendment restricts the agency from interfering with the free press. In the order denying the complaint against WNBC, the agency noted that the station complied with the equal time rule by giving Trump airtime the next day during a NASCAR race and an NFL “Sunday Night Football” game. She added that the FCC “should not be the President’s speech police” or “journalism’s censor-in-chief.”

But Carr argues that Rosenworcel’s order was “issued prematurely based on an insufficient investigatory record for the station-specific conduct at issue.”

“We therefore conclude that this complaint requires further consideration,” he added. “Thus, on our own motion and pursuant to our existing authority under section 1.113 of the Commission’s rules, we hereby set aside the Letter Order and reinstate the complaint.”

The decision to reinstate the complaints come as president Donald Trump has previously called for the broadcast licenses of ABC, NBC and CBS to be revoked over their coverage during the campaign.

Meanwhile, a fourth complaint filed by the Media and Democracy Project, which pushed to revoke the broadcast license of Fox Philadelphia’s WTXF-TV, will not have its dismissal reversed. The complaint, which was supported by former News Corp. government relations head Preston Padden, alleged that the Dominion Voting System lawsuit against Fox Corp. showed that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch lacked the “character” to hold a broadcast license.

In the order denying the complaint against WTFX, the FCC said the character assessment requested is “at odds with the First Amendment and continued freedom of the press” and that previous actions that revoked broadcast licenses for “character” issues “involved the station’s clear failure to comply with agency rules (not at issue here) or a clearly adjudicated felony for the station owner (also not at issue here).”

In a joint statement, the Media and Democracy Project and Padden said they “look forward to presenting on appeal the multiple court decisions that raise serious questions about the Murdochs’ and Fox’s character qualifications to remain broadcast licensees.”

They noted that the petition is based on “judicial findings that Fox made repeated false statements that undermined the electoral process and resulted in property damage, injury and death; that Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch engaged in a ‘carefully crafted scheme’ in ‘bad faith’ to deprive Lachlan’s siblings of the control to which they are entitled under an irrevocable trust; and that ‘Murdoch knowingly caused the corporation to violate the law.’”

“As renowned First Amendment scholar Floyd Abrams stated in his filing with the Commission, the First Amendment is no bar to Commission action given the facts of this case. Our petition is clearly distinct from the other politically motivated complaints,” they added. “It simply will be wrong if the Murdochs and Fox escape any responsibility for their prominent role for the riot at the Capitol on January 6th and the efforts to overturn the results of a presidential election.”

Carr has previously said that the “news distortion” complaint against CBS is likely to arise in the context of the agency’s review of Paramount Global’s pending $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. The deal, which is on track to close in the first half of 2025, is subject to regulatory approval from the FCC due to a required transfer of broadcast licenses.

The Center for American Rights has asked that approval of the merger be conditioned upon Paramount’s commitment that it will avoid foreign influence and promote viewpoint diversity – going as far as suggesting the agency coordinate with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) or other national security agencies to review the transaction.

It argues that an investment in Skydance from Tencent Holdings raises questions about “troubling questions about undue foreign influence from China.” It also claims that CBS News has “exhibited improper ideological bias” and that CBS Television has “apparently engaged in illegal racial quotas for its hiring.”

Skydance and Paramount have asked the FCC to dismiss the firm’s objections to the merger, arguing the viewpoint neutrality condition would “improperly encroach on broadcasters’ editorial discretion” and violate the First Amendment. They also said that the allegations of Chinese influence have “no factual foundation and are legally unavailing” and that Tencent’s “entirely passive, non-attributable, minority interests present no basis for concern about undue influence.”

The post Complaints of Bias, ‘News Distortion’ Against CBS, ABC and NBC Reinstated by Trump-Appointed FCC Chair appeared first on TheWrap.

CBS 58 Milwaukee employees were informed Wednesday that Sam Kuffel “is no longer employed” at the station. The day before, Kuffel posted a photo of Musk from the event to her personal Instagram account, saying, “Dude Nazi saluted twice. TWICE. During the inauguration.” She added, “You (f–k) with this and this man, I don’t (f–k) with you. Full stop.”

She then shared a gif from “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” in which Rob McElhenney says, “Screw that old bi–h. He’s a Nazi.” Her account has since been changed to “private.”

On Tuesday, conservative radio host Dan O’Donnell of 1030 WISN protested that Kuffel was “spreading the lie that Elon Musk was giving a Nazi salute” and called her post “vulgar.”

By Wednesday, Kuffel’s biography and picture had been removed from Channel 58 site, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Defamation League called Musk’s salute an “awkward gesture,” but others agreed with Kuffel.

“Strongman” author Ruth Ben-Ghiat tweeted, “Historian of fascism here. That was a Nazi salute – and a very belligerent one too.”

The post Milwaukee Weather Reporter Fired After Anti-Elon Musk Instagram Post: ‘Dude Nazi Saluted Twice’ appeared first on TheWrap.

“It’s officially Trump’s first week back in office and he already has a packed schedule. It’s a lot to take in, but here, I’ll catch you up,” Fallon said before the show cut to what looked like a pre-recorded segment.

Check out the clip below.

“Sunday: save TikTok. Monday: start job. Tuesday: watch TikTok. Wednesday: back to job. Thursday meetings: give some orders,” Fallon said on beat. “Tell his staff: make meetings shorter. Friday: talk about the border. Yell ‘fake news’ at the reporters. Work, then golf, then jump on plane. Note self: Learn VP’s name. Work, then golf, make [Donald Trump] junior caddy, call to Fox News, call to Vlady.”

He continued: “Hire, then fire, then invade Canada — way too cold, trade it for Panama. Hire, then fire, then invade Greenland — boring, trade it for New Zealand. Golf, work, golf, 1o, on a roll, work, golf, work, TikTok scroll. First week over: thank the nation. Second week: time for vacation.”

While it’s all for laughs, Trump actually has made a lot of executive decisions in his first week as president, including declaring a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border and temporarily suspending U.S. Refugee Admissions Program resettlements, withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement, as well as a signing off on an order that makes it a policy to recognize only two sexes — male and female — on official documents.

Trump officially started the first day of his second term on Monday.

The post Fallon Imagines Trump’s ‘Packed’ First Week To-Do List in Song: ‘Note to Self: Learn VP’s Name’ | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

On Monday, Donald Trump’s first full day back in office, the president issued pardons to about 1,500 people and also commuted the sentences of 14 of his supporters who were charged in connection to the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. These included charged people who are associated with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers.

Specifically, Trump issued “a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all other individuals convicted of offenses related to events that occurred at or near the United States Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.” This included people who assaulted members of law enforcement.

“They really don’t want to talk about it because there’s no easy way to talk about it,” Maddow said on her MSNBC show on Tuesday night. “What they’re going along with here is something they cannot justify.”

“The stomach-churning self-loathing that all those senators felt today, the shame and embarrassment that they felt today as they were asked and asked and asked again about the president of their party springing 211 people who were actively incarcerated in federal prison, mostly for acts of violence against police officers while they were taking part in a violent attack on the U.S. Congress from which some of these same senators had to run for their lives,” she continued. “The feeling they are having, that disgusting feeling of having to swallow this and try to come up with some way to try to stop talking about it because hey can’t say anything about it that doesn’t disgust them and isn’t viscerally wrong. That sickening feeling, maybe that is what will save the country or at least slow its descent.”

“Shame and embarrassment and the difficulty of answering unanswerable questions about indefensible things, those are brakes that can be tapped in our political system,” Maddow further noted. “In Washington and in our politics, there’s basically one way to make public officials who are otherwise behaving in ways that are weak and wrong and know it, there’s basically one way to make them find their spine and change course. And it’s to hound them relentlessly on the things they’re doing that they know are wrong.”

Watch the full “Rachel Maddow Show” segment in the video, above.

The post Rachel Maddow Says Republican ‘Shame and Embarrassment’ Over Trump Might Be What Saves the Country | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

Among them, Trump pulled the United States out of the World Health Organization as well as the Paris Climate Accords. And bringing former Attorney General Merrick Garland’s efforts to protect him from legal consequences for the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection, Trump also freed more than 1,500 of the people imprisoned for storming the Capitol on his orders.

“The Burger King signed more than a hundred executive orders and actions,” Kimmel explained. “He pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accord; he pulled us out of the World Health Organization. There are two big reasons Trump is big on pulling out: Eric and Don Junior.”  

“But,” Kimmel continued, “he did make sure to keep us on TikTok. He issued an executive order to delay the ban on TikTok until April. He released around 1,600 criminals who stormed the Capitol on January 6th, including those who attacked police officers and stockpiled weapons for the event.”

Kimmel also noted how Trump “rescinded Joe Biden’s executive order lowering prescription drug prices for Americans on Medicare and Medicaid,” leading him to joke, “finally, someone’s looking out for Big Pharma and the Promise Keepers, you know?”

There’s a lot more to the monologue of course, and you can watch the whole thing below:

The post Jimmy Kimmel Slams Trump’s Executive Orders: ‘The Bully Is Back at His Pulpit’ | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

Fanone, who also testified at the House Select Committee hearings about the attack, told CNN’s Jake Tapper, “I mean, it’s outrageous, but not surprising.”

He added that Trump’s grandstanding to extremists is nothing new. “If you rewind to the beginning of Donald Trump’s candidacy for the office of the president of the United States, which he announced in Waco, Texas, the scene of a violent confrontation between members of the American extremist movement and law enforcement, in which law enforcement officers lost their lives.”

Watch a clip from his CNN appearance below:

Fanone added, “He’s been promising these pardons since day one, and so the American people should be well aware, or should have been well aware, that this was coming, and they ultimately own this, this decision and these pardons.”

On Jan. 6, rioters dragged Fanone down the steps of the Capitol, beat him with pipes, tased him and sprayed him with bear spray. He suffered a concussion and a heart attack in the middle of the assault, he testified.

CNN later aired footage of the assault on Fanone taken from his own body camera.

After being labeled a “crisis actor” by Fox News anchor Laura Ingraham following his testimony, Fanone told CNN, “The facts are the facts. What happened to me, the injuries I sustained — you don’t have to take my word for it. You can watch the video.”

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow was among those condemning Trump’s pardons, saying that the 47th president is “immunizing his followers from committing violence in his name.”

The post Capitol Hill Cop Attacked on Jan. 6 Reacts to Trump Pardons: ‘Outrageous, but Not Surprising’ | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

The MSNBC host explained in detail that Trump’s choice to pardon almost every rioter from the Capitol Hill riots in 2021 – regardless of whether they were violent toward police officers or not – is essentially the 47th president embracing political violence on his behalf.

“Trump pardoning and releasing from prison the January 6th defendants, including the paramilitaries, means he is effectively immunizing his followers from committing violence in his name,” Maddow said. “He’s making clear, you know, if you support me, the law doesn’t apply to you.”

She continued, “Not incidentally, the people he’s pardoning and their families will feel like they owe Trump everything, and that they therefore should, and now can, do absolutely anything for him.”

In total, Trump pardon or commuted sentences of around 1500 people who rioted on and in the Capitol Building on Jan. 6. 2021. Maddow called the choice to do this for almost everyone involved was a “maximalist option.” She also drew plenty of parallels to what Trump was doing and some of the most famous autocrats in history and called the pardons “textbook authoritarian takeover 101 tactics.” The MSNBC host wrapped her Inauguration Day coverage with a plea of vigilance to the America people.

“More than ever, this is not a time to pretend this isn’t happening,” Maddow said. “You’re going to want to have a good answer when you get asked what you did for your country when your country started to take a turn this radical.”

She finished, “We are here. It’s happening in our lifetimes. Well, we are citizens responsible for the fate of our country. All hands on deck.”

The other headline-making executive order Trump passed in the first day as president was to postpone the TikTok ban for 75 days. He said the extension will give his administration “an opportunity to determine the appropriate course of action with respect to TikTok,” which has 170 million American users.

Watch the full Rachel Maddow video above.

The post Rachel Maddow Warns Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardons Are ‘Immunizing His Followers From Committing Violence in His Name’ | Video appeared first on TheWrap.

“In life, when you have technical difficulties, you just gotta keep going, or as President Trump would say, ‘You gotta fight,'” Cyrus said while on stage before the crowd on Monday. For the 90s country star, it wouldn’t have mattered if his mic didn’t work at all, as he says he would have still put on a show.

“I wouldn’t have missed the honor of playing this event whether my microphone, guitar and monitors worked or not,” Cyrus, who said he was personally invited to the event by Donald Trump, told People in response to the tech issues. “I had a ball at the Liberty Ball last night and I’ve learned through all these years when a producer says, ‘You’re on,’ you go entertain folks, even if the equipment goes to hell. I was there for the people and we had a blast. That’s called rock ‘n’ roll.”

After performing he and Lil Nas X’s hit song “Old Town Road” with no backing track, even more tech problems impacted the singer-songwriter in the middle of his-rock out. As soon as he started to turn the audience up with his 1992 single “Achey Breaky Heart,” his guitar and microphone started to not work.

That’ when he started chatting it up with event attendees.

“Check? Is anybody awake?” Cyrus said in the moment. “Y’all want me to sing more or you want me to just get the hell off the stage?”

That’s when he shared supposed words from Trump: “As President Trump would say, ‘You gotta fight.'” Trump’s most notable use of the term “fight” was after the assassination attempt during a Pennsylvania campaign rally.

“We fight like hell. And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he said at the time. Trump was officially inaugurated Monday afternoon as the 47th President of the United States. Along with Cyrus, many other acts took the stage during inauguration events, including the Village People, Nelly, Kid Rock and Carrie Underwood – who had her own technical glitch when her backing track for “America, the Beautiful” didn’t play, forcing yet another a capella performance.

The post Billy Ray Cyrus Says He Pushed Through Awkward Inauguration Tech Issues by Channeling Trump: ‘You Gotta Fight’ appeared first on TheWrap.

The app’s comeback came after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Monday, blocking the ban on TikTok for 75 days.

As was the case with TikTok this past weekend, Americans who already had CapCut on their phones on Tuesday morning saw the app start working again. However, CapCut remained unavailable for new users to download from Apple and Google’s app stores.

That’s because those two tech giants are still complying with a federal law signed by then-President Joe Biden last year that banned TikTok from both app stores. In the days and weeks ahead, it’ll be worth keeping an eye on whether Apple and Google start offering TikTok and CapCut again in their app stores.

CapCut, according to data obtained by Forbes last year, is nearly as popular as TikTok in the U.S. The editing app was downloaded 44.7 million times in 2023 — nearly equaling the 45 million downloads TikTok had in the U.S. that same year. ByteDance has said TikTok has 170 million monthly American users, but it has not shared how many regular users CapCut has in the U.S.

Trump’s executive order on Monday aimed to give both Apple and Google the legal leeway to offer TikTok (and its sister app) again. His order said the Justice Department “shall take no action” or “impose any penalties” for noncompliance with the law banning TikTok.

The chief concern U.S. lawmakers said they had with TikTok last year is that it could double as a spyware app for the Chinese Communist Party. ByteDance, if compelled by China’s government, is required by law to share user data, including location information and what they type on their phones.

Moving forward, Trump said he would like to see the U.S. enter into a “joint venture” in which it owns 50% of TikTok with ByteDance or a new owner.

The post TikTok’s Sister App Returns to US After Trump Executive Order appeared first on TheWrap.