Dear Weekend Jolter,
National Review’s political reporter Audrey Fahlberg here filling in for Judd again this week.
It’s a big week for conservatives who have long wanted to defund public broadcasting. In passing the White House’s $9 billion rescissions bill, congressional Republicans finally succeeded in a long-standing conservative goal: stripping federal funding from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting. “For decades, Republicans have promised to cut NPR, but have never done it, until now,” President Trump wrote in a social-media post celebrating the move.
For decades, conservatives have indeed urged GOP lawmakers to defund public broadcasting networks like NPR and PBS, arguing that their television and radio station affiliates’ left-leaning political bias undermines their demand for taxpayer subsidies. And for decades, Republican presidents including Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush have proposed cuts to public broadcasting only to face congressional opposition, including from some Republican lawmakers who feared pushback from their own voters.
National Review, of course, has never relied on federal funding. Instead, we count on support from generous readers like you to keep the trains running and strengthen our voice. That’s why we’re asking you to please join us in the fight to keep robust conservative journalism alive by contributing to this year’s summer webathon. We can’t do our work without you.
On the site this week, our writers celebrate the GOP’s legislative success in clawing back public funding to NPR and PBS. In an editorial on the rescissions bill, National Review’s editors explain why the public broadcasting provision is such a welcome development for conservatives:
Its two major beneficiaries are PBS and NPR, outlets whose progressive bias is pervasive and well documented. But even if they were straight-down-the-middle, news and entertainment programming should not be financed by the government.
Our country is home to more than 15,000 commercial radio stations and 4,000 television stations, in addition to a sprawling ecosystem of print, cable, and online media. Viewers and listeners of PBS and NPR are significantly more affluent than the average American, which gives them the means to support public broadcasting through voluntary contributions. Surely they could fill the gap of the 15 percent of funding that currently comes from the federal government (and get some tote bags in the bargain).
On the Corner, Dan McLaughlin explains why “as a legal matter, it makes all the difference in the world that National Public Radio’s budget is being cut by Congress, not by executive action.” He also responds to critics of the rescissions package who claim that defunding public broadcasting is an assault on free speech: “So long as NPR is publicly funded,” Dan writes, “its speech is not ‘free speech’ in the way we think of individual liberty — it is government speech.”
Also on the site this week, Jeff Blehar celebrates, “America has won an unexpected triumph over the seemingly well-entrenched forces of government-funded broadcasting, burrowed into the federal budget deeper than Fordow was into the Zagros Mountains,” but warns that the move may only be temporary.
I’ll leave you with Rich Lowry’s take: “Decades ago, with the rise of cable TV and a proliferation of sources of news and entertainment, it seemed absurd for the government to have to prop up a few select media source,” he writes. “How much more ridiculous it is now, in the age of YouTube, social media, satellite radio, Substack, streaming services, and podcast platforms.”
NAME. RANK. LINK.
EDITORIALS
The big railway train project that couldn’t: California’s High-Speed Boondoggle
On the president’s changing tune on Russia : Trump’s Dwindling Patience With Putin
National Review’s take on Epstein drama: The Epstein Uproar
On 46th’s autopen pardons: The Biden Autopen Scandal
ARTICLES
Rich Lowry: Is Mossad Run by Morons?
Jeff Blehar: Dan Bongino Strands Himself on Epstein’s Island
Charlie Cooke: Everything That’s Going On
Jim Geraghty: Time’s Up for Stephen Colbert and The Late Show
James Lynch: Jewish Student Assaulted at Harvard Sues School for Allegedly Protecting Antisemitic Perpetrators
Kayla Bartsch: Minneapolis Gets Its Own Mamdani
Haley Strack: The Quest to Hold Hamas Accountable for Sexual Violence
Caroline Downey: Join the New Media Revolution
CAPITAL MATTERS
Dominic Pino: Why Tariffs (Probably) Won’t Cause Inflation (But Still Raise Prices)
Dominic Pino: Ivy Leaguers Aren’t Auto Workers
Paul Winfree: Why the Fed Should Cut Rates Now
Brayden Myers: Why Adam Smith Would Hate the Remittance Tax
LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW.
Armond White writes about an overdue exposé of the influencer syndrome: Wild Diamond Flips Reality TV
Brian T. Allen gives his take on his latest fine-arts exhibition adventure: Berthe Weill: Tigress Dealer for the Young Picasso, Matisse, and Chagall
EXCERPTS OF THE WEEK
Trump just can’t get past this Epstein news cycle. Andy McCarthy breaks down the latest:
Weary but indulgent of his MAGA base, President Trump yesterday directed Attorney General Bondi to seek the release of all grand jury testimony from the Epstein investigation. This is a double whammy: It is legally dubious and it won’t satisfy the mob.
Grand jury proceedings are secret by law. There is no overarching public right to know what is uncovered in criminal investigations. If the government actually, formally accuses someone of crimes, such allegations and the relevant evidence become public.
Absent secrecy, the presumption of innocence would be eradicated. That is, people publicly identified as connected to a grand jury probe (including completely innocent people who were just witnesses or whose names randomly came up for some reason) would be assumed by the press and public to be under suspicion of committing crimes. Moreover, absent secrecy, a grand jury probe would be a pointless exercise: Criminals would know what investigators were looking for, enabling them to threaten or pay off witnesses, destroy evidence, etc.
Now, you could counter that, even allowing all I’ve just said, there is no point in maintaining secrecy once the investigation is over. But that’s wrong. Investigations are secret in part to give reluctant witnesses assurance that if they cooperate, their provision of incriminating testimony will not become known (although, if the case goes to trial and they are called as witnesses, their prior testimony becomes public). If people thought that the grand jury testimony would eventually be made public, however, they would not have the assurance of confidentiality. They would fear that (a) dangerous criminals will know they cooperated with law enforcement and/or (b) the public (including employers, family, friends, et al.) will find out they were somehow tied to criminal activity. This would discourage many people from cooperating with law enforcement, defeating much of the purpose of having the grand jury in the first place.
For these reasons, even after an investigation is over, there is no procedure for making grand jury testimony available simply to satisfy public curiosity.
I was left incandescently angry about Dave Weigel’s article in Semafor about former Democratic National Committee chairman Jaime Harrison launching a podcast, declaring himself the Democrats’ answer to Joe Rogan, and revealing that one of his first guests will be Hunter Biden. . . .
Now Harrison is back, with a new podcast, entitled, At Our Table.
Weigel writes, “The first episodes of At Our Table put Harrison next to 2024 vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, South Carolina kingmaker (and Harrison mentor) Rep. James Clyburn — and Hunter Biden, the prodigal former First Son who has not spoken out since his father ended his last presidential bid.”
Please identify for me the Americans who yearn to hear more from Hunter Biden, under the soft questioning of a former Democratic Party chairman.
But somehow, Harrison thinks that Hunter Biden is misunderstood and unfairly caricaturized. He told Weigel:
Well, I got a chance to get to know Hunter a lot over the last four years. I don’t know if you remember, but back in the day, when I was the South Carolina Democratic Party chair, I had this little series called “chair chats.” In chair chats, we talked about moving past caricatures. And in many ways, I think Hunter Biden has become a caricature in politics.
A lot of people don’t know how smart he is, don’t know his background, don’t know the stuff that he’s worked on. They only know what either his allies or his enemies have put out there, and he’s been defined by that.
I thought it would be really interesting to pull back the curtain so that people got a chance to understand who he is, and for him to get an opportunity to talk about some of the things that maybe he’s only been able to talk to his family members about.
Really? The lifelong drug addict who in his own words was “smoking crack every fifteen minutes”; who seduced his late brother’s widow in an extramarital affair and got her addicted to crack cocaine as well; who got a stripper pregnant and then refused to pay child support for years, and who somehow convinced a judge to allow him to pay the child support in the form of paintings; who didn’t pay taxes for years and then attempted to deduct money spent on prostitutes as a business expense; the guy who lied to a federally licensed gun dealer and then lost his gun; the guy who grabbed onto every lucrative deal from every shady foreign businessman from China to Kazakhstan to Ukraine to Romania and put them on the phone with his dad; the “failson” whose entire career was built around access to his father. . .
Harrison thinks that guy has been . . . caricaturized?
Oh, stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.
CODA
The Burke to Buckley Fellowship program is back in Dallas this fall for food, friendship, and first principles! Burke to Buckley is intended for mid-career professionals from a wide variety of professions and industries. Over seven sessions, your cohort will gather to discuss key subjects in American conservatism through foundational texts. Upon completion of the program, you will join a network of hundreds of alumni across the country.
Experts from academia and National Review guide the conversation on topics including Burke, Prudence, and the Spirit of Conservatism, Economic Freedom and Political Freedom, and Conservatism, Democracy, and Foreign Policy. For more information and to apply, click here. Apply today! Applications close August 1.
Thanks for reading and enjoy your weekend! Judd will be back in your inbox next week.