June 27, 2025 • 53 mins
The Senate faces a critical juncture as Republicans scramble to salvage President Trump's signature tax legislation after a devastating parliamentary setback. Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth McDowell has rejected a key provision that would have capped healthcare provider taxes, eliminating approximately $250 billion in planned Medicaid spending cuts meant to offset permanent corporate tax reductions.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune insists they have backup plans, but several Republican senators including Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Josh Hawley had already expressed grave concerns about the potential impact on rural hospitals. The deadline pressure intensifies as President Trump publicly demands lawmakers skip their July 4th recess to complete the legislation, though many senators remain skeptical about staying in Washington without a clear timeline.
Beyond domestic policy struggles, the episode delves into growing tensions between the Trump administration and media outlets over reporting on recent strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities. Defense Secretary Pete Hexeth and other officials have launched unusually personal attacks against reporters from both CNN and Fox News who questioned the administration's claims about completely "obliterating" Iran's nuclear capabilities.
The show also examines the fragile state of LGBTQ rights ten years after the landmark Obergefell decision legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. Despite record public approval, calls from conservative states and Supreme Court justices to reconsider the ruling have advocates concerned about its future, though the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act provides some protection against potential reversals.
What emerges is a portrait of Washington's deep partisan divides and the complex interplay between political ambitions, parliamentary procedures, and constitutional rights that continues to shape America's most consequential policy debates. Subscribe now to stay informed about these critical developments and what they mean for our shared future.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Darrell McClain Show independent
media that won't reinforcetribalism.
We have one plan and nobody'sleaving, so let us reason
together.
You have the pleasure to bejoining me on episode 461.
The Republicans are scramblingto save the president's big,
beautiful bill.
Senate Republicans arescrambling to resurrect
(00:23):
President Trump's bill, whichstalled Thursday after
parliamentarian ElizabethMcDowell rejected one of the
biggest cost-cutting provisions.
Now the chamber's referee ruledthat the Senate's proposed cap
on health care providers' taxesviolated the Byrd rule, which
governs what legislation canpass with a simple majority and
(00:46):
avoid a filibuster under thebudget reconciliation rules.
The provision would cuthundreds of billions of dollars
in federal Medicaid spending.
The Senate Majority Leader,john Thune, told reporters his
leadership team has contingencyplans to keep the bill moving
forward, even though the keypiece may fail and may fall out
(01:09):
of the bill.
Quote we have contingency planB, plan C, he said as he walked
into the Republican lunchmeeting.
Losing the Senate's proposal todeeply cut on federal Medicaid
payments means Republicanleaders need to come up with
hundreds of billions in newsavings to pay for the cost of
making several corporate taxcuts permanent.
(01:31):
The surprise decision wasannounced Thursday as Republican
senators scrambling for way topass the legislation by the 4th
of July deadline set by thepresident.
Quote we have no idea what'sgoing to happen here.
We got to work on some kind offix, said Senator Josh Hawley.
(01:51):
Hopefully they'll fix whilesolving, while involving
protecting rural hospitals.
So the Senator Josh Haw was oneof several GOP senators,
including Susan Collins, lisaMurkowski, jerry Moran and Tom
Tillis, who expressed strongconcerns that capping health
(02:15):
care provider taxes could pushscores of rural hospitals across
the country into bankruptcy.
Senate Democrats estimate thatthe parliamentarian have
rejected approximately $250billion worth of spending cuts
from the Republican bill, givingthe GOP leaders a huge task in
finding new ways to offset thecost of corporate tax cuts.
(02:39):
Offsetting the cost of thecorporate tax breaks beyond a
10-year budget window is acritical element of Thune's and
Senate Finance CommitteeChairmen's Mike Croteau strategy
, because they want to make thempermanent.
I think the monetaryimplications are fairly
(02:59):
significant, said a SenateRepublican who requested
anonymity to discuss theparliamentarian's impact on the
reconciliation package, as howlong the bombshell ruling would
delay the centerpiece of Trump'slegislative agenda.
Kroppel cooped sometimesbetween now and next March.
I'm joking.
Senator John Kennedy said theparliamentarian's ruling against
(03:21):
the key sentencing bill cut thebill is going to be a major
problem for Senate conservativesunless GOP leaders can find
another way to fit additionaldeficit reduction measures into
the bill.
Quote I don't anticipate now usvoting on the motion to proceed
tomorrow more as a spendingreduction bill than an extended
(03:43):
tax cuts bill are probably goingto be screaming like they're
part of a prison riot becausethis substantially reduces
savings.
He said we don't know if we cansave the Medicaid portion, he
said.
He also questioned whetherRepublican lawmakers would stay
in town over the Fourth of Julyrecess if no certain timeline
(04:04):
for voting legislation wasprepared.
I'm prepared to stay the wholeweek but as a practical matter,
a lot of people are running foran election.
A lot of people have plans.
One of John's challenges isgoing to be keeping people here.
He said of the people sayingwell, when you're ready, call me
(04:25):
, I'm going home.
Trump on Tuesday urgedlawmakers to stay in Washington
and skip the upcoming 4th ofJuly recess to finish the bill.
To my friends in the Senatelock yourself in a room If you
must, don't go home and get thedeal done this week.
(04:46):
Now that's what the presidentposted on social media.
Senator Ron Johnson, a member ofthe finance committee, called
the parliamentarians ruling abig old grenade that could blow
up the bill.
Johnson wants the GOP leadersto go back to the drawing board
and come up with alternativespending cuts.
He is proposing leaving SocialSecurity, medicaid and Medicare
(05:09):
alone, focusing instead on othermajority spending.
That, he says, has swelled theannual federal budget by more
than $400 billion a year.
Crapo said his staff would tryto cut and work it out if they
keep the bill on track.
This is a regular process.
(05:30):
Now we have the guidance.
We will have to react to it, hesaid.
Some Republicans say thelanguage and the provisions to
cap health care provider taxes,which states use to increase
their shares of federal Medicaidfunding, can be reworked to
pass the parliamentarians review.
We're going to have to keepworking on it.
It's a scam.
It's a scam the states areusing not to have to put money
(05:54):
into Medicaid.
Senator Rick Scott said I'mfocusing on getting the deal
done Now.
The Senate Budget CommitteeChair, lindsey Graham, announced
on Thursday that he is workingwith Thune and Kropot to find a
pathway toward rewarding theprovider's tax ruling from the
parliamentarian.
The provider tax is one of thebiggest scams I've ever seen in
(06:15):
Washington and I'm hopeful wecan find a way that to find a
way forward.
That is bird compliment.
He said To find a way forward.
That is Byrd compliment.
He said no-transcript.
(06:42):
He called the house languagebetter.
The rural hospitals would liketo a few small tweaks to that,
he said.
He said trump suggested inrecent conversation that senate
negotiations returned to thehouse to uh be passed medicaid
language.
Uh.
Josh hawley said trump told himwednesday that he doesn't want
to build it become too focusedon cutting Medicaid quote.
(07:05):
I think he wants it done.
But he wants it done.
Well, he does not want this tobe a Medicaid cuts bill.
He said that very clear to me.
This is a tax cut bill, it'snot a Medicaid cut bill.
I think he's tired of hearingall about these Medicaid cuts,
as I am.
Josh Hawley said that's becausethere are too many Medicaid
(07:27):
cuts in this bill.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
If a global company is paying its full-time workers
so little that they need federalbenefits like Medicaid or food
stamps, that's not a living wageand that company should lose
eligibility for tax incentives.
The government shouldn't givebig tax breaks to big companies
and then have to pay again tokeep their employees from going
(07:51):
hungry.
That's double dipping.
It makes the taxpayer pay twicefor corporate greed and it's
got to stop.
And while we're talking aboutemployers and employees, I've
heard some people cast unionlabor as a problem or a
roadblock to progress.
Those folks are dead wrong.
Unions were invented because ofcorporate exploitation and
(08:13):
every worker in America shouldhave the right to join a union
if they want.
It is not by accident thatwe're back in an era of
increased interest in unions.
Now our unions need to becomemore nimble.
They can't live in the past.
But if you're a largecorporation worried about
unionization, I suggest youfocus a bit more on taking care
of your workers with good wagesand good benefits.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Parliamentarian was actually busy.
The Senate parliamentarianrejected a Republican attempt to
exempt a small number ofreligious schools, including
Hillsdale College, where manygraduates go to careers in
conservative politics, from anincome tax on college endowments
.
Now, the GOP bill would havesubsequently raised the tax on
(08:55):
the returns of the wealthycollege endowments, but it
exempted Hillsdale, theChristian liberal arts school in
Michigan, which hired a team oflobbyists to avoid getting hit
by the tax.
So the parliamentarian again,elizabeth McDowell, had also
ruled against a section of thebill that removes regulations
pertaining to gun silencers andeasily concealable firearms
(09:17):
under the National Firearms Act.
The provisions were tucked intoa massive budget reconciliation
package that Senate MajorityLeader John Thune hopes to pass
by the 4th of July.
The loosening of restrictions ongun silencers, or suppressors
as they are also known, is a toppriority of the gun industry
(09:38):
and many firearms enthusiasts.
The GOP proposal passed by theHouse would eliminate a $200 tax
stamp and exchange backgroundchecks required to own a
suppressor.
Quote.
We have been successful inremoving part of this bill that
hurts families and workers over,and the Democrats are
(10:05):
continuing to make the caseagainst every provision in this
big, beautiful portrayal of abill that violates Senate rules,
said Senator Jeff Merkley, theranking member on the Senate
Budget Committee.
Republicans are activelyattempting to rewrite the major
section of this bill to advancetheir family lose and
billionaires win agenda.
To advance their family loseand billionaires win agenda.
But Democrats are scrutinizingall changes to ensure the rules
(10:28):
reconciliation are enforced.
He added.
Senator Chris Murphy, anoutspoken proponent of gun
control measures, including theexpanded background checks for
firearm purchases, said gettingrid of restrictions on
suppressors would be a bad idea.
Silencers aren't illegal inthis country.
(11:05):
The law has worked very wellfor years and religious schools
and language to create aprecertification process for
demonstrating the ability of theeligibility for the earned
income tax.
The provision would requireindividuals who claim the credit
to obtain a certificate thattheir child is eligible claim
the credit to obtain acertificate that their child is
(11:25):
eligible.
Mcdowell released her mostrecent rulings late Thursday
hours after rejecting theRepublican proposal on cap
states use of the health careprovider tax to increase the
share of federal Medicaidfunding.
Senate Democrats say theparliamentarian has ruled
against proposing the bill thatwould have cut federal programs
by spending by $250 billion,forcing Republicans to scramble
(11:48):
to rewrite major parts ofPresident Trump's big, beautiful
bill.
Democratic senators said theywere left with questions
Thursday about what was largelyviewed as a successful strike in
Iran, even as many caution.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
The damage done to the country's nuclear program
may fall short of the Trumpadministration's claims.
Cia Director John Ratcliffe andother top intelligence
officials briefed lawmakers forthe first time about the
Saturday strike, a meeting heldas Trump administration
officials have worked overtimeto push their argument that the
(12:24):
attacks left Iran's nuclearfacilities being obliterated.
The point is we do not know,said Senator Richard Blumenthal,
democrat from Connecticut.
Anybody who says we know withcertainty is making it up
because we have no final battledamage assessment.
Certainly this mission wassuccessful insofar as it
(12:46):
extensively destroyed andperhaps severely damaged and set
back the Iranian nuclear armsprogram, but how long and how
much really remains to bedetermined by the intelligence
community itself.
He added.
Reports emerged Tuesday about apreliminary assessment said the
US strikes may have set theIranian nuclear efforts back for
(13:08):
a few months.
The administration has pushedback forcefully at those reports
, including at a Pentagonbriefing earlier Thursday.
Some Democrats criticizedTrump's assessment that the
plants were obliterated, whichthey widely viewed as
overzealous, especially afterseeing the latest information in
(13:29):
the classified setting.
I hope that is the finalassessment, said Senator Mark
Warner, democrat from Virginia,the ranking member on the
Intelligence Committee.
But if not, does that end upproviding a false sense of
comfort for the American people?
Senator Kevin Cramer, republicanfrom North Dakota, said all of
(13:50):
the descriptions of the damageto the program were fitting.
Everybody's got their own wordsSet back, obliterated,
destroyed, greatly diminished.
It is all of those things, Iwould say.
I think all those are accurate.
It is all of those things, Iwould say.
I think all those are accurate,depending on how you use any
one of those terms", kramer said.
But pressed to select his ownterm, kramer paused.
(14:11):
I would say that it is severelyset back, and not just because
the bunker busters were soeffective at Fordow and the
other sites that got hit by themissiles.
And just to build a buildinglike that would take probably a
year.
Just to get some scientists upand running, it would take a
long time to reestablish fromscratch.
(14:34):
Senator Mark Kelly, democratfrom Arizona, faulted Trump for
his glowing assessment of themission before the planes had
even returned.
The way this should work is thepresident and the secretary of
defense should have waited untilthey had an assessment in their
hands and then figure out whatthey wanna share publicly about
that assessment.
(14:54):
That is not what happened inthis case?
Kelly said the president saidsomething.
The secretary of defenserepeated it before they had
anything from the dial.
I think that is pretty clear topeople.
I mean he basically made hisown assessment based on very
limited information.
The airplanes were not evenback in Missouri by the time he
(15:17):
is doing his own personal battledamage assessment.
Kelly noted obliterated is nota military term of art but said
there was much success to see inthe operation.
Nobody got shot down.
Every tomahawk seemed to hitits target.
Every one of those GBU-57s hitthe target.
A lot of that stuff'sunderground.
(15:39):
It is going to take a long timeto figure out exactly what the
condition of these facilitiesare.
He said this probably might goback and forth based on
information that we have, but Ithink what is really fair to say
is there has been a lot ofdamage done to the Iranians'
ability to enrich uranium, beena lot of damage done to the
(16:01):
Iranians' ability to enrichuranium and that has set them
back if they wanted to develop anuclear weapon.
Members were briefed byRatcliffe, joint Chiefs Chairman
Dan Kane, secretary of StateMarco Rubio and Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth afterquestions surrounded who would
be the ones delivering theclassified information to
lawmakers grounded.
Who would be the onesdelivering the classified
information to lawmakers?
(16:22):
Director of NationalIntelligence Tulsi Gabbard was
initially slated to appearalongside Ratcliffe and Kaine on
Tuesday but was eventuallypulled.
Amide reports that she has beensidelined by the White House
from recent meetings on Iran andIsrael.
We had questions.
No one asked why she was notthere, said Senator Tim Kine,
democrat from Virginia.
(16:43):
That she was sidelined and notinvited is something that
everyone has thoughts about.
According to Kine, all fouradministration figures briefed
members during the meeting, withnone necessarily taking the
lead.
The briefing also came ahead ofa vote that is expected in
short order on Kind's war powersresolution.
(17:04):
The measure attempts to blockTrump from taking additional
military actions against theIranian Sands a green light from
Congress.
Senate Republicans are expectedto side with the president on
the measure, especially after hepushed for the ongoing
ceasefire between Iran andIsrael.
Senator Rand Paul, republicanfrom Kentucky, is the most
(17:28):
likely of any Senate GOP memberto side with Kine, who has been
hoping to get more Republicanson board with his fellow
Democrats.
Many lawmakers left the meetingwith the expectation they would
get additional briefings.
We do not have a completeassessment yet of the impact of
the strikes of last week.
Senator Chris Coons, democratfrom Connecticut, said and when
(17:52):
we do?
I think that will answer a lotof currently unanswered
questions lot of currentlyunanswered questions.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
The Supreme Court ruled that Planned Parenthood
can be cut off from Medicaid.
In a ruling made alongsideideological lines, the Supreme
Court ruled on Thursday thatMedicaid beneficiaries do not
have the right to sue to obtaina care provider of their choice,
paving the way for SouthCarolina to block Planned
Parenthood from receivingMedicaid funds.
The law says any individualinsured through Medicaid may
(18:30):
obtain care from any qualifiedand any willing provider.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote forthe majority that Medicaid
recipients do not have the rightto sue to enforce that
provision.
Medicaid is prohibited frompaying for almost all abortions,
but state wants to cutgovernment funding from other
(18:52):
services Planned Parenthoodprovides.
This suit, supported by theTrump administration, was
brought by South Carolina.
This suit, supported by theTrump administration, was
brought by South Carolina.
South Carolina Governor HenryMcMaster praised the ruling
Thursday, saying Seven years agowe took a stand to protect the
(19:16):
sanctity of life and defendSouth Carolina's authority and
values, and today we are finallyvictorious.
The ruling has implications forother states at a time when red
states across the country arelooking for ways to deprive
Planned Parenthood of fundingNationally.
The Trump administration iswithholding federal family
planning grants from ninePlanned Parenthood affiliates
Texas, arkansas and Missourialready blocked Planned
(19:38):
Parenthood from seeing Medicaidpatients, and the organization
has said it expected many otherRepublican led states to do the
same if the Supreme Court sidedwith South Carolina.
Today, the Supreme Court onceagain sided with politicians who
believe they know better thanyou, who want to block you from
(19:59):
seeing your trusted health careprovider and making your own
health care decisions.
Alexis McGill Johnson,president and CEO of Planned
Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement and the
consequences are not theoreticalIn South Carolina are other
states with hostile legislators.
Patients need access to birthcontrol, cancer screening, sti
(20:21):
testing and treatment, and moreRoughly 72 million low-income
Americans receive healthinsurance through Medicaid,
according to the most recentenrollment numbers, and more
than 1.3 million SouthCarolinians, or 20% of the state
, are enrolled in the program,according to health policy
nonprofit KFF.
As extremists in every branch,our governments are targeting
(20:44):
Planned Parenthood andattempting to strip millions of
Americans of care.
They're health center providers.
This is nothing more than apolitically motivated green
light to anti-abortion politics.
Abortion politics, reproductiveFreedom Caucus co -chairs Rep
(21:07):
Diane DeGette and AyannaPressley said in a statement
Trump's attack on CNN and FoxNews as well underscores the
effort to stifle questions andput the media on the back foot.
Trump administration is iscalling out reporters by names
as it seeks to push itsnarrative about the united
states strikes on iran, seekingto put the media on defense
(21:29):
while stifling any talk aboutintelligence reports that fall
short of saying tyran's nuclearcapabilities were obliterated.
The attacks are targeting abroad swath of press that
includes specific reporters andcable news outlets as different
from CNN to Fox News.
The Defense Secretary, pete Hex, and a former Fox News
(21:51):
personality himself, from thePentagon podium Thursday, said
Jennifer, you have been aboutthe worst.
As part of a broad attack onthe media, he was singling out
Jennifer Griffin, a respecteddefense reporter, who asked if
the department was certain thatall of Iran's highly enriched
uranium was at the Fordownuclear facility.
(22:13):
Secretary Carolyn Leavitt, fromher own podium later Thursday,
singled out CNN reporterNathisha Bertrand, saying she
had written a lie from theintelligence community to seek a
(22:34):
narrative she wanted to prove.
The personal attacks are unusualand they underscore the
administration's determinationto put the media on defense and
win a public relations air warover the success of the attacks
on Iran.
The administration is confidentof its success because it had
worked before and because of thegeneral distrust of the media.
These people are never going tolose any polling points
attacking the media.
(22:55):
We know that for sure.
One national political reportertold the Hill on Thursday.
But this is getting prettypersonal and it feels like it's
getting more intense each day.
President Trump also called outBertrand by name Wednesday,
demanding that the network fireher for her reporting on the
intelligence and referencing herprevious reporting relating to
(23:17):
Hunter Biden, russia's influencein 2016 election and the
coronavirus pandemic.
Cnn issued a forceful statementlater defending Bertrand.
Cnn's reporting made it clearthat this is an initial finding
that could change withadditional intelligence.
A spokesperson from the networksaid we have extensively
(23:41):
covered President Trump's owndeep skepticism about it.
That could change withadditional intelligence.
A spokesperson from the networksaid we have extensively
covered President Trump's owndeep skepticism about it.
However, we do not believe itis responsible reasonable to
criticize CNN's reporters foraccurately reporting the
existence of the assessment andaccurately characterizing its
findings, which are in thepublic interest.
The network's top politicalanchor, jake Tapper, called
(24:03):
Trump's attack preposterous andsaid what the president was
doing was going after shootingthe messengers in a increasingly
ugly way.
The New York Times, anothertarget of the administration's
hour, also issued a statementWednesday defending its
reporting on a leaked memo andvowing to continue to report
(24:24):
fully on the administration'sdecision-making, including his
disputes with the defenseintelligence agencies.
Exit, a former colleague ofGriffin.
Suggested a personal beefduring his press conference
Thursday.
Suggested a personal beefduring his press conference
Thursday Jennifer, you have beenabout the worst, the one who
misrepresents the mostintentionally the Defense
(24:50):
Secretary, terence Griffin.
After she asked if he wascompletely confident all the
highly enriched uranium wasinside the Fort O'Mountain where
the strikes had taken place,griffin was quick to defend
herself.
In fact, I was the first todescribe the B-2 bombers, the
refueling, the entire missionwith great accuracy.
She shot back at the secretary.
So I take issue with that.
Minutes later, britt Hume, oneof the longest serving political
(25:14):
analysts, chastised Pete Hexickon Fox News' air over the
outburst.
Her professionalism, herknowledge, her experience at the
Pentagon is unmatched, humesaid, and I had a still and
still have a great regard forher.
The attack on her was unfair.
Trump and his allies haverepeatedly sought to discredit
(25:37):
the leaked intelligence, sayingthe Iranian nuclear program has
been totally obliterated andvowing to investigate the
intelligence that was leaked tomedia outlets.
Levitt suggested that whoeverleaked the intelligence to media
outlets should be in jail,while going after Bertrand.
This is a reporter who has beenused by people who dislike
(25:58):
Donald Trump and the governmentto push fake and false
narratives, she said.
Now the intensifying rhetoricis raising concerns among press
freedom groups and its callingto the to mind over the moves of
the administration as taken tocrack down on the media coverage
it views as unsupportive of thepresident's agenda coverage it
(26:21):
views as unsupportive of thepresident's agenda.
Quote this is a familiarpattern by now.
Journalists report somethingTrump doesn't like and he lashes
out.
He wants the press to pair histalking points and when they
don't, he tries to bully theminto submission, said Clayton
Weimers, executive director ofReporters Without Borders.
That's why he is suing CBS, theDes Moines Register and the
Pulitzer Prize Board.
(26:42):
It is why he banned theAssociated Press from the White
House.
He wants to pad the White Housebriefing room and his press
pool with friendly right-wingvoices.
Tim Richardson, the programmanager for journalism and
disinformation at PEN America,told the Hill on Thursday the
administration has tried tovilify journalists who
(27:04):
accurately characterize thatintelligence, rather than
addressing the substance of hisown administration's
intelligence report in thefact-based reporting an emblem
of harassment against journalismand, sorry, an emboldened
harassment against journalismwho asks hard questions,
(27:25):
especially in times ofinternational conflict,
richardson added.
In a statement on Thursday, theWhite House pushed back on
assertions it was trying tostifle an independent press.
Public trust in the media is atan all-time low because of
biased reporters who push fakenews for political purpose, says
a White House spokesperson.
Said Concerned journalistsshould look inward and encourage
(27:47):
their colleagues to reportobjectively rather than push
top-secret documents leakedillegally by bad actors to
undermine the president.
Former Defense Secretary LeonPanetta said Hesek appears to
disdain the media.
There is no question that theway he approaches this reflects
a lot of his personal judgmentand paranoia, very frankly,
(28:09):
about the role of the press,panetta said, rather than trying
to paint the press as comingfrom one direction or another,
that's a trap.
It's a trap because, frankly,we have press on all sides.
We have press on the left, wehave press on the right, we have
press in the middle, allbasically speaking to the truth.
Seth Stern, director of theadvocacy at the Freedom of the
(28:31):
Press Foundation, added that theWhite House officials' response
to leaked intelligencereporting shows that their
crackdown on journalists andwhistleblowers have nothing to
do with national security andeverything to do with saving
themselves from embarrassment.
Some argue that, while Trumpmight be winning the political
points by attacking the pressover the intel leak episode, he
could also be taking a risk ifthe Iranian nuclear facilities
(28:56):
are proven to not be completelyobliterated.
The irony is that Trump wouldget more credit if he weren't so
relentlessly craven aboutclaiming and over claiming.
It's said Dale David Axelrod, alongtime Democratic political
operative and Trump critic.
He wrote that on the socialmedia platform known as X
(29:21):
platform known as X.
It was cynical, even by Trump'sstandards, for him to suggest
to that that the questions tothe instant conclusive analysis
he offered Americans in thehours after the B-2 mission was
in any way attack on the bravemen and women who carried it out
.
It was cowardly.
Let's go to an opinion piece byBrooke Migdon which is 10 years
(29:46):
after Obergefell.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
The gay marriage decision is facing growing
threats from the courts 10 yearsafter Obergefell, gay marriage
faces growing threats by BrookeMigdon.
Same-sex marriage equality hasbeen the law of the land for ten
years as of Thursday, but aftera string of crushing losses for
(30:10):
LGBTQ rights at the SupremeCourt this term and calls for
the court to revisit itsdecision in Obergefell v Hodges,
including from its own justices, those involved in the fight
wonder how long their victorymay last.
I certainly never thought thatat the 10th anniversary of
marriage equality, I would beworried about making it beyond
(30:31):
10 years, said lead plaintiffJim Obergefell.
Yet here we are.
Obergefell sued the state ofOhio in 2013 over its refusal to
recognize same-sex marriage ondeath certificates.
His late husband, john ArthurJames, whom he married in
Maryland, died of complicationsfrom ALS or amyotrophic lateral
(30:52):
sclerosis.
Shortly before litigation began, john and I started something
that was scary, something thatwas overwhelming, he said in a
recent interview.
But it was all for the rightreason.
We loved each other and wewanted to exist.
We wanted to be seen by ourstate and we wanted John to die
a married man, he said, and Iwanted to be his widower in
(31:14):
every sense of that term.
Two years later, on June 26,2015, the Supreme Court ruled
that the right to marry isguaranteed to same-sex couples
by the due process and equalprotection clauses of the 14th
Amendment of the United StatesConstitution.
It truly changed, within theLGBTQ community, the feeling of
(31:35):
equality, said Jason MitchellKahn, a New York wedding planner
and author of we Do aninclusive guide when a
traditional wedding will not cutit.
Since that ruling, same-sexweddings have exploded beyond
our wildest imagination, saidKahn, who is gay.
I grew up never thinking thatpeople like me would get married
and so to now be working in itall the time.
(31:57):
It is so special.
Nearly 600,000 same-sex couplesin the US have married since,
boosting state and localeconomies by roughly $6 billion
and generating an estimated $432million in sales tax revenue.
According to a report releasedthis week by the Williams
Institute at UCLA School of Law.
It has been good for people'sfamilies, good for the economy,
(32:18):
good for society, released thisweek by the Williams Institute
at UCLA School of Law.
It has been good for people'sfamilies, good for the economy,
good for society, said MaryBonato, senior Director of Civil
Rights and Legal Strategies atGLAAD Law in Boston.
Bonato, who argued theObergefell case before the
Supreme Court in 2015, said theruling has been transformative
(32:42):
for couples and for theirfamilies, the legal rights are
enormously consequential,whether it is inheritance,
family health insurance, theability to file your taxes
together, social securitybenefits when a spouse passes.
She said Now people can counton their marriages day to day,
as they are living their lives,raising their families, planning
for their futures, buying homestogether, building businesses.
(33:02):
This is really so core topeople's ability to be part of
and function in society.
Public opinion polling showsnational support for same-sex
marriage at record highs,hovering between 68 and 71
percent.
In a May Gallup poll, however,republican support for marriage
equality fell to 41 percent, thelowest in a decade.
(33:24):
A survey released this week bya trio of polling firms painted
a starkly different picture,with 56% of Republican
respondents saying they supportsame-sex marriage.
Kristen Soltes Anderson, aRepublican pollster whose firm
Echelon Insights helped conductthe survey, wrote in a New York
(33:44):
Times op-ed this week that thereis little political passion or
momentum on the side ofopposition to legal same-sex
marriage.
But Anderson cautioned that thelive-and-let-live ethos does
not extend to the entire LGBTQcommunity and Republican voters
seem to have made a distinctionbetween the LG B and the T,
(34:06):
which stands for transgender.
In recent years, the GOP hasappeared more amenable to
same-sex marriage.
The party's 2024 platformscrapped longstanding language
that explicitly opposed it.
Though, recent efforts toundermine marriage equality or
overturn the Supreme Court'sruling in Obergefell have been
spearheaded by Republicans.
(34:27):
In January, idaho'sGOP-dominated House passed a
resolution calling for the highcourt to reconsider its decision
, which the justices cannot dounless they are presented with a
case.
The resolution, which isnon-binding, expresses the
legislature's collective opinionthat the court's Ober Jeffel
ruling is an illegitimateoverreach and has caused
(34:51):
collateral damage to otheraspects of our constitutional
order that protect liberty,including religious liberty.
Republican lawmakers in atleast five other states,
including Democratic-controlledMichigan, have issued similar
calls to the Supreme Court.
None of the resolution'sprimary sponsors returned
requests for comment or to beinterviewed.
(35:13):
At an annual meeting in Dallasthis month, southern Baptists
similarly voted overwhelminglyto endorse laws that affirm
marriage between one man and onewoman.
The sweeping resolutionapproved at the gathering of
more than 10,000 churchrepresentatives says lawmakers
have a responsibility to passlegislation reflecting the truth
of more than 10,000 churchrepresentatives.
Says lawmakers have aresponsibility to pass
legislation reflecting the truthof creation and natural law
(35:35):
about marriage, sex, human lifeand family, and to oppose
proposals that contradict whatGod has made plain through
nature and scripture.
The document calls foroverturning laws and court
rulings that defy God's designfor marriage and family, which
includes the Supreme Court'sObergefell decision.
Brent Leatherwood, president ofthe Southern Baptist
(35:57):
Convention's Ethics andReligious Liberty Commission,
said the church's resolution isa call for moral clarity At the
individual level.
We are trying to speak toindividual consciences and tell
them there is a better way toboth think about marriage and
participate in marriage thanwhat they are seeing all around
them in culture.
Leatherwood said Some of theSupreme Court's own justices
(36:20):
have also voiced concerns aboutwhether the Obergefell decision
infringes on religious freedomor misinterprets the
Constitution.
Infringes on religious freedomor misinterprets the
Constitution.
Justices Clarence Thomas andSamuel Alito, conservatives, who
dissented from the court'smajority opinion in 2015, wrote
again in 2020 that the court, insiding with the Obergefell
(36:41):
plaintiffs, read a right tosame-sex marriage into the 14th
Amendment, even though thatright is found nowhere in the
text.
Last winter, in a five-pagestatement explaining the court's
decision not to involve itselfin a dispute between the
Missouri Department ofCorrections and jurors dismissed
for disapproving of same-sexmarriage on religious grounds,
(37:03):
alito wrote that the conflictexemplifies the danger he
anticipated in 2015, namely,that Americans who do not hide
their adherence to traditionalreligious beliefs about
homosexual conduct will belabeled as bigots and treated as
such by the government.
He wrote In a concurringopinion to the Supreme Court's
(37:23):
2022 majority ruling in Dobbs vJackson Women's Health
Organization, in which the courtoverturned the constitutional
right to abortion.
Thomas said the justices shouldreconsider past decisions
codifying rights to same-sexmarriage, gay sex and access to
contraception.
Rulings, he said, weredemonstrably erroneous.
(37:44):
I think there are a number ofreasons why people are concerned
now, and I do not think that isunreasonable, said Bonato, the
attorney who argued in favor ofmarriage equality in 2015.
I will say, however, thatoverturning Obergefell would be
undeniably awful, and Gladlawand others of us are going to
fight tooth and nail witheverything we have to preserve
(38:07):
it, and really we have someconfidence that we will win.
In late 2022, in large partbecause of Thomas' dissent in
the Court's Dobbs decision,congress passed the Respect for
Marriage Act codifyingprotections for same-sex and
interracial married couples.
The measure also formallyrepealed the Defense of Marriage
Act D O Emma, a 1996 law thatrecognized marriage as
(38:32):
exclusively between one man andone woman.
The Supreme Court had alreadyruled a portion of that law
unconstitutional in a decisionhanded down exactly two years
before it ruled in Obergefell.
We know in our nation thateverything gets challenged
eventually, said Bonato.
But it is an extremelyimportant recognition from the
(38:53):
Congress that marriage is justtoo important to people to have
it blink on and off when youcross state lines.
The importance of the Respectfor Marriage Act should not be
understated right now.
In particular, said NaomiGoldberg, executive director of
the Movement Advancement Project, a non-profit think tank, that
bill being passed by Congressreally has changed the game.
(39:15):
In more than half of states,statutes or constitutional
amendments banning same-sexmarriage remain on the books,
though zombie laws againstmarriage equality are not
enforceable because of theSupreme Court's ruling in
Obergefell.
The Respect for Marriage Actprevents those measures from
(39:37):
being enforced on alreadymarried couples or couples
married in states without a banon same-sex marriage.
The court's decision beoverturned a significant shift
from the pre-Obergefelllandscape, where recognition of
marriage depended entirely onzip code.
When you look at the map ofwhere we were in 2015 and
(39:57):
anti-quality laws, it was quitea different country, said
Goldberg.
Families were making decisionsabout where to travel.
Do we need to take a birthcertificate or a will with us?
The fact that those couples canmarry in every place across the
country and they can travelsafely and not worry about being
barred from a hospital room ornot be able to make a decision
for their child is remarkable.
She added those really tangiblethings can get lost when we talk
(40:21):
about these big concepts likethe Constitution and protections
for communities.
Asked about the handful ofresolutions asking for the
Supreme Court to revisit itsObergefell decision, goldberg
said more meaningful and legallybinding action has taken place
in states looking to bolsterprotections for same-sex couples
.
Voters in three progressivestates California, Colorado and
(40:45):
Hawaii passed ballot measures inNovember that struck language
from their constitutionsdefining marriage as being
between one man and one woman.
Additional states are hoping toget similar proposals before
voters in 2026.
I firmly believe that it wouldtake a lot for couples in this
country to lose the right tomarry, said Goldberg.
(41:06):
That does not mean that havingthat language on the books is
not symbolic and meaningful tothose of us who live in states
like that.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Bill Moore's, a face of public TV and once a White
House voice, has actually diedat the age of 91.
He was a renowned televisioncorrespondent and a commentator
who had long ties with Lyndon BJohnson, including being his
(41:38):
press secretary.
Bill Morris, who served as thechief spokesman for President
Lyndon Johnson during theAmerican military buildup in
Vietnam and then went on to havea long and celebrated career in
broadcast journalism, nowreturning repeatedly to the
(42:03):
subject of corruption of theAmerican democracy by money and
power, died on Thursday inManhattan.
He was the son of William CoopMorris, confirmed deaf at the
Memorial Sloan Keating CancerCenter, two Americans who grew
(42:23):
up after the 1960s.
Morris was known above all asan unusual breed of television
correspondent and commentator.
He was once described by PeterJ Boyer, the journalist and
author, as a rare and powerfulvoice of a kind of secular
(42:44):
evangelist.
But before that, moores was thePresident Johnson's closest
aide, president on Air Force Onein Dallas when Johnson took the
oath of office after theassassination of John F Kennedy.
Morris played a pivotal role inthe inception of Johnson's
Great Society programs and wasthe President's top
(43:05):
administrative assistant andpress secretary.
When Johnson sent hundreds ofthousands of troops to fight the
war in Vietnam.
Moores resigned from theadministration in December of
1966 at the age of 32,finalizing an irreparable
falling out between ahot-tempered, flamboyant Johnson
(43:28):
, who demanded unwaveringloyalty, and a cool,
self-contained Moores, whomJohnson had denied several
foreign policy positions.
The two men never reconciled.
In his 1971 memoir, the VantagePoint Perspectives of the
Presidency from 1963 to 1969.
(43:52):
Johnson mentioned Moores onlyfleetingly, reducing him to
little more than a footnote.
In his four decades as atelevision correspondent and a
commentator, moores, who was anordained Baptist minister,
explored issues ranging frompoverty to violence, income
inequality and racial bigotryand the role of money in
(44:15):
politics, threats to theConstitution and climate change.
His documentaries and reportswon him top prizes in television
and journalism, more than 30Emmy Awards and, in comparison
to the late Edward R Morrow, hisrevered predecessor at CBS.
In the age of broadcastblowhards, the soft-spoken Mr
(44:40):
Mors applied his earnestdeferential style to interviews
with poets, philosophers,educators, often on subjects of
values, ideas.
His 1988 PBS series JosephCabwell and Campbell and the
Power of Myth drew 30 millionviewers posthumanously turned Mr
(45:04):
Campbell at the time alittle-known mythologist at the
time a little-known mythologistinto a broadcasting star and
popularized the Campbelldicudictum.
Follow your Bliss His sense ofmoral urgency.
To admirers, many of them whowere liberals, morris was the
(45:25):
nation's conscience, bringing tohis work one television critic
called a sense of moral urgencyand decency.
Others, mostly conservative,found him to be sanctimonious
and accused him of bias.
In 2004, retrospective, theconservative website
FrontPagecom called him asweater-wearing pundit who
(45:49):
delivered socialist andneo-Marxist propaganda with a
soft Texas accent.
Famously modest andself-deprecating, morris often
invoked himself and his humblesmall-town roots in Marshall,
texas.
Yet he was ambitious, political, intense and shrewd.
Political intents.
(46:12):
And shrewd.
His Rolodex was once said tocontain the names of every
important person who ever lived.
But he emphasized theimportance of speaking to, for
and about regular people.
He could draw out anyone from apsychiatrist's patients to a
Supreme Court justice to aSupreme Court justice.
(46:34):
But he resisted opening upabout himself.
He occasionally spoke about hisJohnson years but never
consented to be interviewed byRobert A Carroll, the Pusler
Prize winning writer, who spentmore than 40 years of his five
volume Johnson documentary.
By all accounts, despite hissoft East Texas style, he is one
of the most complicated menthat politics or even the media
ever produced.
(46:54):
The journalist Ann Creedenwrote in a 1981 profile for
Channels Magazine titled thePerplexing Mr Moyers.
Bill Don Morris was born Junethe 5th of 1934 in Hugo,
oklahoma, the younger of twosons, john and Ruby Johnson
(47:14):
Morris.
His father was a unskilledlaborer.
The family moved to Marshall,near the Louisiana border, when
Bill was six months here.
Six months old, tackling takinga summer job on a newspaper
while still in school.
Six months old, tackling takinga summer job on a newspaper
while still in school, he slicedthe Y off his byline describing
the name sounded more dignifiedwithout it.
(47:35):
His Baptist parents dreamedthat he would become a minister.
Our parents wanted so deeplyfor us to make some kind of mark
.
Morris brothers.
James once said, but Morris tooka different path.
James once said, but Morristook a different path.
He worked for Marshall NewsMessenger in high school and
later created its publisher,michael Corp.
With encouraging his interestin public affairs.
(47:57):
He went on to study journalism,government history, theology
and ethics and he said,deliberate preparation for a
career in public service.
So that was just kind of ashort excerpt of a very lengthy
article about Mr Morse in theNew York Times.
(48:18):
About a few more paragraphsleft if you want to read it in
its entirety and it will beagain at the New York Times in
the business and media section.
I did watch the Bill Morse hisshow occasionally when I was
(48:41):
growing up.
I found him to be calm,collective but obviously still
piercing with his questions.
Piercing with his questions.
So rest in peace to thelongtime TV personality, the
correspondent and commentator.
Speaker 3 (49:00):
Bill Moores.
I never met Nato.
I never met Nato.
How do you feel about Nato?
I never met Nato.
I never met Nato.
I don't know nothing about him.
I don't talk about people.
Nato is the North AtlanticTreaty.
Oh, but you just said it.
I thought you were talkingabout the guy.
I know this guy that NATO, nato, jenkins.
You have to know these things Ifyou're running for public
office.
Do you know NATO Jenkins?
Do you know NATO Jenkins?
I know what NATO is.
Do you know NATO Jenkins?
I'm sorry, I haven't met thegentleman.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
That's what I said just a flash flashback to a
funny movie Chris Rock andBernie Mac did a few years ago,
before Bernie Mac passed away,called Head of State, I think,
and this was something comical.
And they are saying this isbasically how Ted Cruz looked
when he was asked about Iranianpopulation and culture makeup by
Tucker Carlson.
(49:44):
That's where we're going to endit, something light.
Thank you for tuning in andI'll see you on the next episode
.
Welcome to the Darrell McClain Show independent
media that won't reinforcetribalism.
We have one plan and nobody'sleaving, so let us reason
together.
You have the pleasure to bejoining me on episode 461.
The Republicans are scramblingto save the president's big,
beautiful bill.
Senate Republicans arescrambling to resurrect
(00:23):
President Trump's bill, whichstalled Thursday after
parliamentarian ElizabethMcDowell rejected one of the
biggest cost-cutting provisions.
Now the chamber's referee ruledthat the Senate's proposed cap
on health care providers' taxesviolated the Byrd rule, which
governs what legislation canpass with a simple majority and
(00:46):
avoid a filibuster under thebudget reconciliation rules.
The provision would cuthundreds of billions of dollars
in federal Medicaid spending.
The Senate Majority Leader,john Thune, told reporters his
leadership team has contingencyplans to keep the bill moving
forward, even though the keypiece may fail and may fall out
(01:09):
of the bill.
Quote we have contingency planB, plan C, he said as he walked
into the Republican lunchmeeting.
Losing the Senate's proposal todeeply cut on federal Medicaid
payments means Republicanleaders need to come up with
hundreds of billions in newsavings to pay for the cost of
making several corporate taxcuts permanent.
(01:31):
The surprise decision wasannounced Thursday as Republican
senators scrambling for way topass the legislation by the 4th
of July deadline set by thepresident.
Quote we have no idea what'sgoing to happen here.
We got to work on some kind offix, said Senator Josh Hawley.
(01:51):
Hopefully they'll fix whilesolving, while involving
protecting rural hospitals.
So the Senator Josh Haw was oneof several GOP senators,
including Susan Collins, lisaMurkowski, jerry Moran and Tom
Tillis, who expressed strongconcerns that capping health
(02:15):
care provider taxes could pushscores of rural hospitals across
the country into bankruptcy.
Senate Democrats estimate thatthe parliamentarian have
rejected approximately $250billion worth of spending cuts
from the Republican bill, givingthe GOP leaders a huge task in
finding new ways to offset thecost of corporate tax cuts.
(02:39):
Offsetting the cost of thecorporate tax breaks beyond a
10-year budget window is acritical element of Thune's and
Senate Finance CommitteeChairmen's Mike Croteau strategy
, because they want to make thempermanent.
I think the monetaryimplications are fairly
(02:59):
significant, said a SenateRepublican who requested
anonymity to discuss theparliamentarian's impact on the
reconciliation package, as howlong the bombshell ruling would
delay the centerpiece of Trump'slegislative agenda.
Kroppel cooped sometimesbetween now and next March.
I'm joking.
Senator John Kennedy said theparliamentarian's ruling against
(03:21):
the key sentencing bill cut thebill is going to be a major
problem for Senate conservativesunless GOP leaders can find
another way to fit additionaldeficit reduction measures into
the bill.
Quote I don't anticipate now usvoting on the motion to proceed
tomorrow more as a spendingreduction bill than an extended
(03:43):
tax cuts bill are probably goingto be screaming like they're
part of a prison riot becausethis substantially reduces
savings.
He said we don't know if we cansave the Medicaid portion, he
said.
He also questioned whetherRepublican lawmakers would stay
in town over the Fourth of Julyrecess if no certain timeline
(04:04):
for voting legislation wasprepared.
I'm prepared to stay the wholeweek but as a practical matter,
a lot of people are running foran election.
A lot of people have plans.
One of John's challenges isgoing to be keeping people here.
He said of the people sayingwell, when you're ready, call me
(04:25):
, I'm going home.
Trump on Tuesday urgedlawmakers to stay in Washington
and skip the upcoming 4th ofJuly recess to finish the bill.
To my friends in the Senatelock yourself in a room If you
must, don't go home and get thedeal done this week.
(04:46):
Now that's what the presidentposted on social media.
Senator Ron Johnson, a member ofthe finance committee, called
the parliamentarians ruling abig old grenade that could blow
up the bill.
Johnson wants the GOP leadersto go back to the drawing board
and come up with alternativespending cuts.
He is proposing leaving SocialSecurity, medicaid and Medicare
(05:09):
alone, focusing instead on othermajority spending.
That, he says, has swelled theannual federal budget by more
than $400 billion a year.
Crapo said his staff would tryto cut and work it out if they
keep the bill on track.
This is a regular process.
(05:30):
Now we have the guidance.
We will have to react to it, hesaid.
Some Republicans say thelanguage and the provisions to
cap health care provider taxes,which states use to increase
their shares of federal Medicaidfunding, can be reworked to
pass the parliamentarians review.
We're going to have to keepworking on it.
It's a scam.
It's a scam the states areusing not to have to put money
(05:54):
into Medicaid.
Senator Rick Scott said I'mfocusing on getting the deal
done Now.
The Senate Budget CommitteeChair, lindsey Graham, announced
on Thursday that he is workingwith Thune and Kropot to find a
pathway toward rewarding theprovider's tax ruling from the
parliamentarian.
The provider tax is one of thebiggest scams I've ever seen in
(06:15):
Washington and I'm hopeful wecan find a way that to find a
way forward.
That is bird compliment.
He said To find a way forward.
That is Byrd compliment.
He said no-transcript.
(06:42):
He called the house languagebetter.
The rural hospitals would liketo a few small tweaks to that,
he said.
He said trump suggested inrecent conversation that senate
negotiations returned to thehouse to uh be passed medicaid
language.
Uh.
Josh hawley said trump told himwednesday that he doesn't want
to build it become too focusedon cutting Medicaid quote.
(07:05):
I think he wants it done.
But he wants it done.
Well, he does not want this tobe a Medicaid cuts bill.
He said that very clear to me.
This is a tax cut bill, it'snot a Medicaid cut bill.
I think he's tired of hearingall about these Medicaid cuts,
as I am.
Josh Hawley said that's becausethere are too many Medicaid
(07:27):
cuts in this bill.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
If a global company is paying its full-time workers
so little that they need federalbenefits like Medicaid or food
stamps, that's not a living wageand that company should lose
eligibility for tax incentives.
The government shouldn't givebig tax breaks to big companies
and then have to pay again tokeep their employees from going
(07:51):
hungry.
That's double dipping.
It makes the taxpayer pay twicefor corporate greed and it's
got to stop.
And while we're talking aboutemployers and employees, I've
heard some people cast unionlabor as a problem or a
roadblock to progress.
Those folks are dead wrong.
Unions were invented because ofcorporate exploitation and
(08:13):
every worker in America shouldhave the right to join a union
if they want.
It is not by accident thatwe're back in an era of
increased interest in unions.
Now our unions need to becomemore nimble.
They can't live in the past.
But if you're a largecorporation worried about
unionization, I suggest youfocus a bit more on taking care
of your workers with good wagesand good benefits.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
Parliamentarian was actually busy.
The Senate parliamentarianrejected a Republican attempt to
exempt a small number ofreligious schools, including
Hillsdale College, where manygraduates go to careers in
conservative politics, from anincome tax on college endowments
.
Now, the GOP bill would havesubsequently raised the tax on
(08:55):
the returns of the wealthycollege endowments, but it
exempted Hillsdale, theChristian liberal arts school in
Michigan, which hired a team oflobbyists to avoid getting hit
by the tax.
So the parliamentarian again,elizabeth McDowell, had also
ruled against a section of thebill that removes regulations
pertaining to gun silencers andeasily concealable firearms
(09:17):
under the National Firearms Act.
The provisions were tucked intoa massive budget reconciliation
package that Senate MajorityLeader John Thune hopes to pass
by the 4th of July.
The loosening of restrictions ongun silencers, or suppressors
as they are also known, is a toppriority of the gun industry
(09:38):
and many firearms enthusiasts.
The GOP proposal passed by theHouse would eliminate a $200 tax
stamp and exchange backgroundchecks required to own a
suppressor.
Quote.
We have been successful inremoving part of this bill that
hurts families and workers over,and the Democrats are
(10:05):
continuing to make the caseagainst every provision in this
big, beautiful portrayal of abill that violates Senate rules,
said Senator Jeff Merkley, theranking member on the Senate
Budget Committee.
Republicans are activelyattempting to rewrite the major
section of this bill to advancetheir family lose and
billionaires win agenda.
To advance their family loseand billionaires win agenda.
But Democrats are scrutinizingall changes to ensure the rules
(10:28):
reconciliation are enforced.
He added.
Senator Chris Murphy, anoutspoken proponent of gun
control measures, including theexpanded background checks for
firearm purchases, said gettingrid of restrictions on
suppressors would be a bad idea.
Silencers aren't illegal inthis country.
(11:05):
The law has worked very wellfor years and religious schools
and language to create aprecertification process for
demonstrating the ability of theeligibility for the earned
income tax.
The provision would requireindividuals who claim the credit
to obtain a certificate thattheir child is eligible claim
the credit to obtain acertificate that their child is
(11:25):
eligible.
Mcdowell released her mostrecent rulings late Thursday
hours after rejecting theRepublican proposal on cap
states use of the health careprovider tax to increase the
share of federal Medicaidfunding.
Senate Democrats say theparliamentarian has ruled
against proposing the bill thatwould have cut federal programs
by spending by $250 billion,forcing Republicans to scramble
(11:48):
to rewrite major parts ofPresident Trump's big, beautiful
bill.
Democratic senators said theywere left with questions
Thursday about what was largelyviewed as a successful strike in
Iran, even as many caution.
Speaker 3 (12:02):
The damage done to the country's nuclear program
may fall short of the Trumpadministration's claims.
Cia Director John Ratcliffe andother top intelligence
officials briefed lawmakers forthe first time about the
Saturday strike, a meeting heldas Trump administration
officials have worked overtimeto push their argument that the
(12:24):
attacks left Iran's nuclearfacilities being obliterated.
The point is we do not know,said Senator Richard Blumenthal,
democrat from Connecticut.
Anybody who says we know withcertainty is making it up
because we have no final battledamage assessment.
Certainly this mission wassuccessful insofar as it
(12:46):
extensively destroyed andperhaps severely damaged and set
back the Iranian nuclear armsprogram, but how long and how
much really remains to bedetermined by the intelligence
community itself.
He added.
Reports emerged Tuesday about apreliminary assessment said the
US strikes may have set theIranian nuclear efforts back for
(13:08):
a few months.
The administration has pushedback forcefully at those reports
, including at a Pentagonbriefing earlier Thursday.
Some Democrats criticizedTrump's assessment that the
plants were obliterated, whichthey widely viewed as
overzealous, especially afterseeing the latest information in
(13:29):
the classified setting.
I hope that is the finalassessment, said Senator Mark
Warner, democrat from Virginia,the ranking member on the
Intelligence Committee.
But if not, does that end upproviding a false sense of
comfort for the American people?
Senator Kevin Cramer, republicanfrom North Dakota, said all of
(13:50):
the descriptions of the damageto the program were fitting.
Everybody's got their own wordsSet back, obliterated,
destroyed, greatly diminished.
It is all of those things, Iwould say.
I think all those are accurate.
It is all of those things, Iwould say.
I think all those are accurate,depending on how you use any
one of those terms", kramer said.
But pressed to select his ownterm, kramer paused.
(14:11):
I would say that it is severelyset back, and not just because
the bunker busters were soeffective at Fordow and the
other sites that got hit by themissiles.
And just to build a buildinglike that would take probably a
year.
Just to get some scientists upand running, it would take a
long time to reestablish fromscratch.
(14:34):
Senator Mark Kelly, democratfrom Arizona, faulted Trump for
his glowing assessment of themission before the planes had
even returned.
The way this should work is thepresident and the secretary of
defense should have waited untilthey had an assessment in their
hands and then figure out whatthey wanna share publicly about
that assessment.
(14:54):
That is not what happened inthis case?
Kelly said the president saidsomething.
The secretary of defenserepeated it before they had
anything from the dial.
I think that is pretty clear topeople.
I mean he basically made hisown assessment based on very
limited information.
The airplanes were not evenback in Missouri by the time he
(15:17):
is doing his own personal battledamage assessment.
Kelly noted obliterated is nota military term of art but said
there was much success to see inthe operation.
Nobody got shot down.
Every tomahawk seemed to hitits target.
Every one of those GBU-57s hitthe target.
A lot of that stuff'sunderground.
(15:39):
It is going to take a long timeto figure out exactly what the
condition of these facilitiesare.
He said this probably might goback and forth based on
information that we have, but Ithink what is really fair to say
is there has been a lot ofdamage done to the Iranians'
ability to enrich uranium, beena lot of damage done to the
(16:01):
Iranians' ability to enrichuranium and that has set them
back if they wanted to develop anuclear weapon.
Members were briefed byRatcliffe, joint Chiefs Chairman
Dan Kane, secretary of StateMarco Rubio and Defense
Secretary Pete Hegseth afterquestions surrounded who would
be the ones delivering theclassified information to
lawmakers grounded.
Who would be the onesdelivering the classified
information to lawmakers?
(16:22):
Director of NationalIntelligence Tulsi Gabbard was
initially slated to appearalongside Ratcliffe and Kaine on
Tuesday but was eventuallypulled.
Amide reports that she has beensidelined by the White House
from recent meetings on Iran andIsrael.
We had questions.
No one asked why she was notthere, said Senator Tim Kine,
democrat from Virginia.
(16:43):
That she was sidelined and notinvited is something that
everyone has thoughts about.
According to Kine, all fouradministration figures briefed
members during the meeting, withnone necessarily taking the
lead.
The briefing also came ahead ofa vote that is expected in
short order on Kind's war powersresolution.
(17:04):
The measure attempts to blockTrump from taking additional
military actions against theIranian Sands a green light from
Congress.
Senate Republicans are expectedto side with the president on
the measure, especially after hepushed for the ongoing
ceasefire between Iran andIsrael.
Senator Rand Paul, republicanfrom Kentucky, is the most
(17:28):
likely of any Senate GOP memberto side with Kine, who has been
hoping to get more Republicanson board with his fellow
Democrats.
Many lawmakers left the meetingwith the expectation they would
get additional briefings.
We do not have a completeassessment yet of the impact of
the strikes of last week.
Senator Chris Coons, democratfrom Connecticut, said and when
(17:52):
we do?
I think that will answer a lotof currently unanswered
questions lot of currentlyunanswered questions.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
The Supreme Court ruled that Planned Parenthood
can be cut off from Medicaid.
In a ruling made alongsideideological lines, the Supreme
Court ruled on Thursday thatMedicaid beneficiaries do not
have the right to sue to obtaina care provider of their choice,
paving the way for SouthCarolina to block Planned
Parenthood from receivingMedicaid funds.
The law says any individualinsured through Medicaid may
(18:30):
obtain care from any qualifiedand any willing provider.
Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote forthe majority that Medicaid
recipients do not have the rightto sue to enforce that
provision.
Medicaid is prohibited frompaying for almost all abortions,
but state wants to cutgovernment funding from other
(18:52):
services Planned Parenthoodprovides.
This suit, supported by theTrump administration, was
brought by South Carolina.
This suit, supported by theTrump administration, was
brought by South Carolina.
South Carolina Governor HenryMcMaster praised the ruling
Thursday, saying Seven years agowe took a stand to protect the
(19:16):
sanctity of life and defendSouth Carolina's authority and
values, and today we are finallyvictorious.
The ruling has implications forother states at a time when red
states across the country arelooking for ways to deprive
Planned Parenthood of fundingNationally.
The Trump administration iswithholding federal family
planning grants from ninePlanned Parenthood affiliates
Texas, arkansas and Missourialready blocked Planned
(19:38):
Parenthood from seeing Medicaidpatients, and the organization
has said it expected many otherRepublican led states to do the
same if the Supreme Court sidedwith South Carolina.
Today, the Supreme Court onceagain sided with politicians who
believe they know better thanyou, who want to block you from
(19:59):
seeing your trusted health careprovider and making your own
health care decisions.
Alexis McGill Johnson,president and CEO of Planned
Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement and the
consequences are not theoreticalIn South Carolina are other
states with hostile legislators.
Patients need access to birthcontrol, cancer screening, sti
(20:21):
testing and treatment, and moreRoughly 72 million low-income
Americans receive healthinsurance through Medicaid,
according to the most recentenrollment numbers, and more
than 1.3 million SouthCarolinians, or 20% of the state
, are enrolled in the program,according to health policy
nonprofit KFF.
As extremists in every branch,our governments are targeting
(20:44):
Planned Parenthood andattempting to strip millions of
Americans of care.
They're health center providers.
This is nothing more than apolitically motivated green
light to anti-abortion politics.
Abortion politics, reproductiveFreedom Caucus co -chairs Rep
(21:07):
Diane DeGette and AyannaPressley said in a statement
Trump's attack on CNN and FoxNews as well underscores the
effort to stifle questions andput the media on the back foot.
Trump administration is iscalling out reporters by names
as it seeks to push itsnarrative about the united
states strikes on iran, seekingto put the media on defense
(21:29):
while stifling any talk aboutintelligence reports that fall
short of saying tyran's nuclearcapabilities were obliterated.
The attacks are targeting abroad swath of press that
includes specific reporters andcable news outlets as different
from CNN to Fox News.
The Defense Secretary, pete Hex, and a former Fox News
(21:51):
personality himself, from thePentagon podium Thursday, said
Jennifer, you have been aboutthe worst.
As part of a broad attack onthe media, he was singling out
Jennifer Griffin, a respecteddefense reporter, who asked if
the department was certain thatall of Iran's highly enriched
uranium was at the Fordownuclear facility.
(22:13):
Secretary Carolyn Leavitt, fromher own podium later Thursday,
singled out CNN reporterNathisha Bertrand, saying she
had written a lie from theintelligence community to seek a
(22:34):
narrative she wanted to prove.
The personal attacks are unusualand they underscore the
administration's determinationto put the media on defense and
win a public relations air warover the success of the attacks
on Iran.
The administration is confidentof its success because it had
worked before and because of thegeneral distrust of the media.
These people are never going tolose any polling points
attacking the media.
(22:55):
We know that for sure.
One national political reportertold the Hill on Thursday.
But this is getting prettypersonal and it feels like it's
getting more intense each day.
President Trump also called outBertrand by name Wednesday,
demanding that the network fireher for her reporting on the
intelligence and referencing herprevious reporting relating to
(23:17):
Hunter Biden, russia's influencein 2016 election and the
coronavirus pandemic.
Cnn issued a forceful statementlater defending Bertrand.
Cnn's reporting made it clearthat this is an initial finding
that could change withadditional intelligence.
A spokesperson from the networksaid we have extensively
(23:41):
covered President Trump's owndeep skepticism about it.
That could change withadditional intelligence.
A spokesperson from the networksaid we have extensively
covered President Trump's owndeep skepticism about it.
However, we do not believe itis responsible reasonable to
criticize CNN's reporters foraccurately reporting the
existence of the assessment andaccurately characterizing its
findings, which are in thepublic interest.
The network's top politicalanchor, jake Tapper, called
(24:03):
Trump's attack preposterous andsaid what the president was
doing was going after shootingthe messengers in a increasingly
ugly way.
The New York Times, anothertarget of the administration's
hour, also issued a statementWednesday defending its
reporting on a leaked memo andvowing to continue to report
(24:24):
fully on the administration'sdecision-making, including his
disputes with the defenseintelligence agencies.
Exit, a former colleague ofGriffin.
Suggested a personal beefduring his press conference
Thursday.
Suggested a personal beefduring his press conference
Thursday Jennifer, you have beenabout the worst, the one who
misrepresents the mostintentionally the Defense
(24:50):
Secretary, terence Griffin.
After she asked if he wascompletely confident all the
highly enriched uranium wasinside the Fort O'Mountain where
the strikes had taken place,griffin was quick to defend
herself.
In fact, I was the first todescribe the B-2 bombers, the
refueling, the entire missionwith great accuracy.
She shot back at the secretary.
So I take issue with that.
Minutes later, britt Hume, oneof the longest serving political
(25:14):
analysts, chastised Pete Hexickon Fox News' air over the
outburst.
Her professionalism, herknowledge, her experience at the
Pentagon is unmatched, humesaid, and I had a still and
still have a great regard forher.
The attack on her was unfair.
Trump and his allies haverepeatedly sought to discredit
(25:37):
the leaked intelligence, sayingthe Iranian nuclear program has
been totally obliterated andvowing to investigate the
intelligence that was leaked tomedia outlets.
Levitt suggested that whoeverleaked the intelligence to media
outlets should be in jail,while going after Bertrand.
This is a reporter who has beenused by people who dislike
(25:58):
Donald Trump and the governmentto push fake and false
narratives, she said.
Now the intensifying rhetoricis raising concerns among press
freedom groups and its callingto the to mind over the moves of
the administration as taken tocrack down on the media coverage
it views as unsupportive of thepresident's agenda coverage it
(26:21):
views as unsupportive of thepresident's agenda.
Quote this is a familiarpattern by now.
Journalists report somethingTrump doesn't like and he lashes
out.
He wants the press to pair histalking points and when they
don't, he tries to bully theminto submission, said Clayton
Weimers, executive director ofReporters Without Borders.
That's why he is suing CBS, theDes Moines Register and the
Pulitzer Prize Board.
(26:42):
It is why he banned theAssociated Press from the White
House.
He wants to pad the White Housebriefing room and his press
pool with friendly right-wingvoices.
Tim Richardson, the programmanager for journalism and
disinformation at PEN America,told the Hill on Thursday the
administration has tried tovilify journalists who
(27:04):
accurately characterize thatintelligence, rather than
addressing the substance of hisown administration's
intelligence report in thefact-based reporting an emblem
of harassment against journalismand, sorry, an emboldened
harassment against journalismwho asks hard questions,
(27:25):
especially in times ofinternational conflict,
richardson added.
In a statement on Thursday, theWhite House pushed back on
assertions it was trying tostifle an independent press.
Public trust in the media is atan all-time low because of
biased reporters who push fakenews for political purpose, says
a White House spokesperson.
Said Concerned journalistsshould look inward and encourage
(27:47):
their colleagues to reportobjectively rather than push
top-secret documents leakedillegally by bad actors to
undermine the president.
Former Defense Secretary LeonPanetta said Hesek appears to
disdain the media.
There is no question that theway he approaches this reflects
a lot of his personal judgmentand paranoia, very frankly,
(28:09):
about the role of the press,panetta said, rather than trying
to paint the press as comingfrom one direction or another,
that's a trap.
It's a trap because, frankly,we have press on all sides.
We have press on the left, wehave press on the right, we have
press in the middle, allbasically speaking to the truth.
Seth Stern, director of theadvocacy at the Freedom of the
(28:31):
Press Foundation, added that theWhite House officials' response
to leaked intelligencereporting shows that their
crackdown on journalists andwhistleblowers have nothing to
do with national security andeverything to do with saving
themselves from embarrassment.
Some argue that, while Trumpmight be winning the political
points by attacking the pressover the intel leak episode, he
could also be taking a risk ifthe Iranian nuclear facilities
(28:56):
are proven to not be completelyobliterated.
The irony is that Trump wouldget more credit if he weren't so
relentlessly craven aboutclaiming and over claiming.
It's said Dale David Axelrod, alongtime Democratic political
operative and Trump critic.
He wrote that on the socialmedia platform known as X
(29:21):
platform known as X.
It was cynical, even by Trump'sstandards, for him to suggest
to that that the questions tothe instant conclusive analysis
he offered Americans in thehours after the B-2 mission was
in any way attack on the bravemen and women who carried it out
.
It was cowardly.
Let's go to an opinion piece byBrooke Migdon which is 10 years
(29:46):
after Obergefell.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
The gay marriage decision is facing growing
threats from the courts 10 yearsafter Obergefell, gay marriage
faces growing threats by BrookeMigdon.
Same-sex marriage equality hasbeen the law of the land for ten
years as of Thursday, but aftera string of crushing losses for
(30:10):
LGBTQ rights at the SupremeCourt this term and calls for
the court to revisit itsdecision in Obergefell v Hodges,
including from its own justices, those involved in the fight
wonder how long their victorymay last.
I certainly never thought thatat the 10th anniversary of
marriage equality, I would beworried about making it beyond
(30:31):
10 years, said lead plaintiffJim Obergefell.
Yet here we are.
Obergefell sued the state ofOhio in 2013 over its refusal to
recognize same-sex marriage ondeath certificates.
His late husband, john ArthurJames, whom he married in
Maryland, died of complicationsfrom ALS or amyotrophic lateral
(30:52):
sclerosis.
Shortly before litigation began, john and I started something
that was scary, something thatwas overwhelming, he said in a
recent interview.
But it was all for the rightreason.
We loved each other and wewanted to exist.
We wanted to be seen by ourstate and we wanted John to die
a married man, he said, and Iwanted to be his widower in
(31:14):
every sense of that term.
Two years later, on June 26,2015, the Supreme Court ruled
that the right to marry isguaranteed to same-sex couples
by the due process and equalprotection clauses of the 14th
Amendment of the United StatesConstitution.
It truly changed, within theLGBTQ community, the feeling of
(31:35):
equality, said Jason MitchellKahn, a New York wedding planner
and author of we Do aninclusive guide when a
traditional wedding will not cutit.
Since that ruling, same-sexweddings have exploded beyond
our wildest imagination, saidKahn, who is gay.
I grew up never thinking thatpeople like me would get married
and so to now be working in itall the time.
(31:57):
It is so special.
Nearly 600,000 same-sex couplesin the US have married since,
boosting state and localeconomies by roughly $6 billion
and generating an estimated $432million in sales tax revenue.
According to a report releasedthis week by the Williams
Institute at UCLA School of Law.
It has been good for people'sfamilies, good for the economy,
(32:18):
good for society, released thisweek by the Williams Institute
at UCLA School of Law.
It has been good for people'sfamilies, good for the economy,
good for society, said MaryBonato, senior Director of Civil
Rights and Legal Strategies atGLAAD Law in Boston.
Bonato, who argued theObergefell case before the
Supreme Court in 2015, said theruling has been transformative
(32:42):
for couples and for theirfamilies, the legal rights are
enormously consequential,whether it is inheritance,
family health insurance, theability to file your taxes
together, social securitybenefits when a spouse passes.
She said Now people can counton their marriages day to day,
as they are living their lives,raising their families, planning
for their futures, buying homestogether, building businesses.
(33:02):
This is really so core topeople's ability to be part of
and function in society.
Public opinion polling showsnational support for same-sex
marriage at record highs,hovering between 68 and 71
percent.
In a May Gallup poll, however,republican support for marriage
equality fell to 41 percent, thelowest in a decade.
(33:24):
A survey released this week bya trio of polling firms painted
a starkly different picture,with 56% of Republican
respondents saying they supportsame-sex marriage.
Kristen Soltes Anderson, aRepublican pollster whose firm
Echelon Insights helped conductthe survey, wrote in a New York
(33:44):
Times op-ed this week that thereis little political passion or
momentum on the side ofopposition to legal same-sex
marriage.
But Anderson cautioned that thelive-and-let-live ethos does
not extend to the entire LGBTQcommunity and Republican voters
seem to have made a distinctionbetween the LG B and the T,
(34:06):
which stands for transgender.
In recent years, the GOP hasappeared more amenable to
same-sex marriage.
The party's 2024 platformscrapped longstanding language
that explicitly opposed it.
Though, recent efforts toundermine marriage equality or
overturn the Supreme Court'sruling in Obergefell have been
spearheaded by Republicans.
(34:27):
In January, idaho'sGOP-dominated House passed a
resolution calling for the highcourt to reconsider its decision
, which the justices cannot dounless they are presented with a
case.
The resolution, which isnon-binding, expresses the
legislature's collective opinionthat the court's Ober Jeffel
ruling is an illegitimateoverreach and has caused
(34:51):
collateral damage to otheraspects of our constitutional
order that protect liberty,including religious liberty.
Republican lawmakers in atleast five other states,
including Democratic-controlledMichigan, have issued similar
calls to the Supreme Court.
None of the resolution'sprimary sponsors returned
requests for comment or to beinterviewed.
(35:13):
At an annual meeting in Dallasthis month, southern Baptists
similarly voted overwhelminglyto endorse laws that affirm
marriage between one man and onewoman.
The sweeping resolutionapproved at the gathering of
more than 10,000 churchrepresentatives says lawmakers
have a responsibility to passlegislation reflecting the truth
of more than 10,000 churchrepresentatives.
Says lawmakers have aresponsibility to pass
legislation reflecting the truthof creation and natural law
(35:35):
about marriage, sex, human lifeand family, and to oppose
proposals that contradict whatGod has made plain through
nature and scripture.
The document calls foroverturning laws and court
rulings that defy God's designfor marriage and family, which
includes the Supreme Court'sObergefell decision.
Brent Leatherwood, president ofthe Southern Baptist
(35:57):
Convention's Ethics andReligious Liberty Commission,
said the church's resolution isa call for moral clarity At the
individual level.
We are trying to speak toindividual consciences and tell
them there is a better way toboth think about marriage and
participate in marriage thanwhat they are seeing all around
them in culture.
Leatherwood said Some of theSupreme Court's own justices
(36:20):
have also voiced concerns aboutwhether the Obergefell decision
infringes on religious freedomor misinterprets the
Constitution.
Infringes on religious freedomor misinterprets the
Constitution.
Justices Clarence Thomas andSamuel Alito, conservatives, who
dissented from the court'smajority opinion in 2015, wrote
again in 2020 that the court, insiding with the Obergefell
(36:41):
plaintiffs, read a right tosame-sex marriage into the 14th
Amendment, even though thatright is found nowhere in the
text.
Last winter, in a five-pagestatement explaining the court's
decision not to involve itselfin a dispute between the
Missouri Department ofCorrections and jurors dismissed
for disapproving of same-sexmarriage on religious grounds,
(37:03):
alito wrote that the conflictexemplifies the danger he
anticipated in 2015, namely,that Americans who do not hide
their adherence to traditionalreligious beliefs about
homosexual conduct will belabeled as bigots and treated as
such by the government.
He wrote In a concurringopinion to the Supreme Court's
(37:23):
2022 majority ruling in Dobbs vJackson Women's Health
Organization, in which the courtoverturned the constitutional
right to abortion.
Thomas said the justices shouldreconsider past decisions
codifying rights to same-sexmarriage, gay sex and access to
contraception.
Rulings, he said, weredemonstrably erroneous.
(37:44):
I think there are a number ofreasons why people are concerned
now, and I do not think that isunreasonable, said Bonato, the
attorney who argued in favor ofmarriage equality in 2015.
I will say, however, thatoverturning Obergefell would be
undeniably awful, and Gladlawand others of us are going to
fight tooth and nail witheverything we have to preserve
(38:07):
it, and really we have someconfidence that we will win.
In late 2022, in large partbecause of Thomas' dissent in
the Court's Dobbs decision,congress passed the Respect for
Marriage Act codifyingprotections for same-sex and
interracial married couples.
The measure also formallyrepealed the Defense of Marriage
Act D O Emma, a 1996 law thatrecognized marriage as
(38:32):
exclusively between one man andone woman.
The Supreme Court had alreadyruled a portion of that law
unconstitutional in a decisionhanded down exactly two years
before it ruled in Obergefell.
We know in our nation thateverything gets challenged
eventually, said Bonato.
But it is an extremelyimportant recognition from the
(38:53):
Congress that marriage is justtoo important to people to have
it blink on and off when youcross state lines.
The importance of the Respectfor Marriage Act should not be
understated right now.
In particular, said NaomiGoldberg, executive director of
the Movement Advancement Project, a non-profit think tank, that
bill being passed by Congressreally has changed the game.
(39:15):
In more than half of states,statutes or constitutional
amendments banning same-sexmarriage remain on the books,
though zombie laws againstmarriage equality are not
enforceable because of theSupreme Court's ruling in
Obergefell.
The Respect for Marriage Actprevents those measures from
(39:37):
being enforced on alreadymarried couples or couples
married in states without a banon same-sex marriage.
The court's decision beoverturned a significant shift
from the pre-Obergefelllandscape, where recognition of
marriage depended entirely onzip code.
When you look at the map ofwhere we were in 2015 and
(39:57):
anti-quality laws, it was quitea different country, said
Goldberg.
Families were making decisionsabout where to travel.
Do we need to take a birthcertificate or a will with us?
The fact that those couples canmarry in every place across the
country and they can travelsafely and not worry about being
barred from a hospital room ornot be able to make a decision
for their child is remarkable.
She added those really tangiblethings can get lost when we talk
(40:21):
about these big concepts likethe Constitution and protections
for communities.
Asked about the handful ofresolutions asking for the
Supreme Court to revisit itsObergefell decision, goldberg
said more meaningful and legallybinding action has taken place
in states looking to bolsterprotections for same-sex couples
.
Voters in three progressivestates California, Colorado and
(40:45):
Hawaii passed ballot measures inNovember that struck language
from their constitutionsdefining marriage as being
between one man and one woman.
Additional states are hoping toget similar proposals before
voters in 2026.
I firmly believe that it wouldtake a lot for couples in this
country to lose the right tomarry, said Goldberg.
(41:06):
That does not mean that havingthat language on the books is
not symbolic and meaningful tothose of us who live in states
like that.
Speaker 1 (41:17):
Bill Moore's, a face of public TV and once a White
House voice, has actually diedat the age of 91.
He was a renowned televisioncorrespondent and a commentator
who had long ties with Lyndon BJohnson, including being his
(41:38):
press secretary.
Bill Morris, who served as thechief spokesman for President
Lyndon Johnson during theAmerican military buildup in
Vietnam and then went on to havea long and celebrated career in
broadcast journalism, nowreturning repeatedly to the
(42:03):
subject of corruption of theAmerican democracy by money and
power, died on Thursday inManhattan.
He was the son of William CoopMorris, confirmed deaf at the
Memorial Sloan Keating CancerCenter, two Americans who grew
(42:23):
up after the 1960s.
Morris was known above all asan unusual breed of television
correspondent and commentator.
He was once described by PeterJ Boyer, the journalist and
author, as a rare and powerfulvoice of a kind of secular
(42:44):
evangelist.
But before that, moores was thePresident Johnson's closest
aide, president on Air Force Onein Dallas when Johnson took the
oath of office after theassassination of John F Kennedy.
Morris played a pivotal role inthe inception of Johnson's
Great Society programs and wasthe President's top
(43:05):
administrative assistant andpress secretary.
When Johnson sent hundreds ofthousands of troops to fight the
war in Vietnam.
Moores resigned from theadministration in December of
1966 at the age of 32,finalizing an irreparable
falling out between ahot-tempered, flamboyant Johnson
(43:28):
, who demanded unwaveringloyalty, and a cool,
self-contained Moores, whomJohnson had denied several
foreign policy positions.
The two men never reconciled.
In his 1971 memoir, the VantagePoint Perspectives of the
Presidency from 1963 to 1969.
(43:52):
Johnson mentioned Moores onlyfleetingly, reducing him to
little more than a footnote.
In his four decades as atelevision correspondent and a
commentator, moores, who was anordained Baptist minister,
explored issues ranging frompoverty to violence, income
inequality and racial bigotryand the role of money in
(44:15):
politics, threats to theConstitution and climate change.
His documentaries and reportswon him top prizes in television
and journalism, more than 30Emmy Awards and, in comparison
to the late Edward R Morrow, hisrevered predecessor at CBS.
In the age of broadcastblowhards, the soft-spoken Mr
(44:40):
Mors applied his earnestdeferential style to interviews
with poets, philosophers,educators, often on subjects of
values, ideas.
His 1988 PBS series JosephCabwell and Campbell and the
Power of Myth drew 30 millionviewers posthumanously turned Mr
(45:04):
Campbell at the time alittle-known mythologist at the
time a little-known mythologistinto a broadcasting star and
popularized the Campbelldicudictum.
Follow your Bliss His sense ofmoral urgency.
To admirers, many of them whowere liberals, morris was the
(45:25):
nation's conscience, bringing tohis work one television critic
called a sense of moral urgencyand decency.
Others, mostly conservative,found him to be sanctimonious
and accused him of bias.
In 2004, retrospective, theconservative website
FrontPagecom called him asweater-wearing pundit who
(45:49):
delivered socialist andneo-Marxist propaganda with a
soft Texas accent.
Famously modest andself-deprecating, morris often
invoked himself and his humblesmall-town roots in Marshall,
texas.
Yet he was ambitious, political, intense and shrewd.
Political intents.
(46:12):
And shrewd.
His Rolodex was once said tocontain the names of every
important person who ever lived.
But he emphasized theimportance of speaking to, for
and about regular people.
He could draw out anyone from apsychiatrist's patients to a
Supreme Court justice to aSupreme Court justice.
(46:34):
But he resisted opening upabout himself.
He occasionally spoke about hisJohnson years but never
consented to be interviewed byRobert A Carroll, the Pusler
Prize winning writer, who spentmore than 40 years of his five
volume Johnson documentary.
By all accounts, despite hissoft East Texas style, he is one
of the most complicated menthat politics or even the media
ever produced.
(46:54):
The journalist Ann Creedenwrote in a 1981 profile for
Channels Magazine titled thePerplexing Mr Moyers.
Bill Don Morris was born Junethe 5th of 1934 in Hugo,
oklahoma, the younger of twosons, john and Ruby Johnson
(47:14):
Morris.
His father was a unskilledlaborer.
The family moved to Marshall,near the Louisiana border, when
Bill was six months here.
Six months old, tackling takinga summer job on a newspaper
while still in school.
Six months old, tackling takinga summer job on a newspaper
while still in school, he slicedthe Y off his byline describing
the name sounded more dignifiedwithout it.
(47:35):
His Baptist parents dreamedthat he would become a minister.
Our parents wanted so deeplyfor us to make some kind of mark
.
Morris brothers.
James once said, but Morris tooka different path.
James once said, but Morristook a different path.
He worked for Marshall NewsMessenger in high school and
later created its publisher,michael Corp.
With encouraging his interestin public affairs.
(47:57):
He went on to study journalism,government history, theology
and ethics and he said,deliberate preparation for a
career in public service.
So that was just kind of ashort excerpt of a very lengthy
article about Mr Morse in theNew York Times.
(48:18):
About a few more paragraphsleft if you want to read it in
its entirety and it will beagain at the New York Times in
the business and media section.
I did watch the Bill Morse hisshow occasionally when I was
(48:41):
growing up.
I found him to be calm,collective but obviously still
piercing with his questions.
Piercing with his questions.
So rest in peace to thelongtime TV personality, the
correspondent and commentator.
Speaker 3 (49:00):
Bill Moores.
I never met Nato.
I never met Nato.
How do you feel about Nato?
I never met Nato.
I never met Nato.
I don't know nothing about him.
I don't talk about people.
Nato is the North AtlanticTreaty.
Oh, but you just said it.
I thought you were talkingabout the guy.
I know this guy that NATO, nato, jenkins.
You have to know these things Ifyou're running for public
office.
Do you know NATO Jenkins?
Do you know NATO Jenkins?
I know what NATO is.
Do you know NATO Jenkins?
I'm sorry, I haven't met thegentleman.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
That's what I said just a flash flashback to a
funny movie Chris Rock andBernie Mac did a few years ago,
before Bernie Mac passed away,called Head of State, I think,
and this was something comical.
And they are saying this isbasically how Ted Cruz looked
when he was asked about Iranianpopulation and culture makeup by
Tucker Carlson.
(49:44):
That's where we're going to endit, something light.
Thank you for tuning in andI'll see you on the next episode
.
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