Spectator chairman and veteran journalist Andrew Neil said he left GB News after it became “an outlet for bizarre conspiracy theories” and blasted media watchdog Ofcom for being “tolerant” of the broadcaster, saying the regulator “needs to find a backbone.”
The comments were made during a session on Tuesday with the House of Lords Communications Committee, who grilled Neil
about the evolving and future challenges in the British media landscape. Neil discussed the roles mainstream broadcasters play in meeting audience needs, amid rising competition from new entrants like GB News and TalkTV.
Neil left the BBC in September 2020 to join GB News as chairman with a prime time show on the network. However, after presenting only eight shows in two weeks, Neil went on hiatus, finally resigning a year later in 2021. Since then he has called the move the “single biggest mistake” of his career
and become a critic of the broadcaster.
Speaking to the committee, the veteran journalist spoke of his decision to resign and the direction that GB News took soon after launch: “What I didn’t want it to become, I could see it was happening, which is why I left almost immediately, was an outlet for bizarre conspiracy theories, or anti-vaxxers, or basically the nutty end of politics. Which Fox News is, I say, very good at. And in America there’s a bigger market for that. There’s no market in Britain beyond a hardcore of nutters. Am I allowed to say nutters? I just said nutters.”
Baroness Wheatcroft asked: “So, is the outlook for GB News, as far as you’re concerned, fairly gloomy? Not just because you’re concerned, because they’ve got the model wrong.”
Neil replied: “I need to be careful what I say here because I’m quite surprised that GB News has survived as long as it has. And I’m even more surprised that it’s all off at Talk TV. I actually thought Talk TV might do real damage to GB News because it did have better production values and it wasn’t so conspiracy theory. It had a variety. I think it did kind of lean to the right, but it had a variety of opinions and they weren’t all to the right.”
He continued: “I think GB News has found, to my surprise, it’s found a niche for itself, but it’s not a very big niche and it’s not a niche that can ever be profitable… It has lost over £90 million and it lost more in year two than it lost in year one. Whereas the original business model was to break even by year three. I think I’m pretty safe in saying that won’t happen.”
Neil added: “So if there’s a bunch of people who want to carry on financing it because they like the ideology, well, that’s up to them. But I find it very hard to see how it could ever be profitable or even break even.”
Discussing investigations into GB News’ impartiality by Ofcom, Neil was equally scathing, criticising the watchdog for its “tolerant” approach and claiming that if he had continued his chairmanship at the broadcaster issues around politicians interviewing politicians would not have happened.
“I’m surprised how tolerant Ofcom has been of GB News,” Neil said. “I think it may be because Ofcom knows that the rest of the broadcast universe is on the centre, centre-left, bit more left, band. And so it gave GB News a bit more leeway to try and settle down.”
He continued: “I am surprised that any regulator would allow politicians sitting in the House of Parliament to present TV programs, political TV programs. I mean, if I had stayed as chairman, it would never have happened because I would not have had any politician present a television show in the first place. And I would certainly never have allowed politicians to interview other politicians from the same party. I mean, I just find that incredible. And I think in these areas, Ofcom needs to find a backbone, and quick.”
Host of The Mary Trump Show
podcast and strident Trump criticMary Trump and MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell brutally mocked ex-President Donald Trump over his family’s absence in court, even comparing Trump unfavorably to Jeffrey Dahmer.
On Monday night’s edition
of MSNBC’s The Last Word
, Mary and Larry (as Trump and O’Donnell’s friends call him) spent several minutes tearing Trump and his family members apart:
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: So the, Donald Trump’s, defense lawyer, Todd Blanche, said this in his opening statement today. “He’s not just Donald Trump that you’ve seen on TV and read about and seen photos of. He’s also a man, he’s a husband, he’s a father, and he’s a person just like you and just like me.”.
Now, I don’t know why he didn’t include uncle, since you’re out there, but, so this point about. He’s a husband and a father. That’s the first time. And I’ve been in a lot of criminal courtrooms watching trials.
That’s the first time I have seen a criminal defense lawyer describe his client as a husband and a father without without having the wife and the children in the front row of the courtroom.
This is something that I’ve never seen. Not actually made manifest in the courtroom, before Donald Trump’s in that courtroom alone. Jeffrey Dahmer’s parents were there every single day. It is. It is very hard, to to find a courtroom where the criminal defendant doesn’t have a relative sitting there in the front row.
MARY TRUMP: Yeah, well, I got a couple of things about that. First of all, it’s another example of how, he, he perverts systems or expectations. For anybody else, that would just be damning. Right. Just the way he talks about dogs would be damning.
How many times have we heard that his bizarre behavior, that that he engages in bizarre behaviors or just doesn’t conform in a way that that a, a reasonably well-adjusted human being would?
But like everything else about him, it just kind of gets baked in. Right.
But it is. Let’s, it’s worth, pausing, about how under. Unfair on. Unreal. Bizarre. Strange. Unacceptable. Weird. Whatever adjective you want to use, it is that he is there alone in terms of friends and family.
I think it is worth pointing out… One. I don’t think he cares. I don’t think it matters to him. That is not where he gets his energy. That is not what gives him solace to the extent that anything does. He’s more upset about the fact that there aren’t more people outside protesting on his behalf. Right.
But it also points to, the bizarre thing about my family that every transaction in this family is a transactional one. I’m sorry. Every relationship, I should say, is a transactional one. His kids have decided, for whatever reason, that it’s not worth their time for them to be in that courtroom because they’re not going to get anything out of it. That’s that’s the way this family rolls.
Jim Trusty, who used to represent former President Donald Trump, ripped Trump’s current defense team for earning a “tongue-lashing” from Judge Juan Merchan in court on Tuesday.
Merchan told
Trump attorney Todd Blanche that he was “losing all credibility with the Court” during a Tuesday morning hearing about Trump’s potential violations of a gag order imposed on him by the judge, who also bristled at a comment from Blanche about there being “two systems of justice.”
“There’s two systems of justice in this courtroom? That’s what you’re saying?” asked an irritated Merchan.
On CNN, Trusty, who previously represented
Trump in his classified documents case, called it a “bad moment” for Blanche.
“I have to say, if you’re an attorney, you know, no matter what side of the aisle you’re on, you know, the C-word is a terrible word to hear about yourself. And I mean credibility. When you start hearing a judge, you know- and look, this could be a tongue-lashing that’s not followed by a whole lot of damage,” reflected Trusty. “But, you know, if the judge starts saying you’ve lost credibility, you know, that’s a bad moment for anybody, and you’ve really got to figure out a way, how do I patch this back? And, you know, most of us, we feel like our reputation precedes us when we go into a courtroom anywhere, whether it’s home territory in New York or somewhere else. You know, you know what your reputation is with the bench and you don’t like hearing those moments. So that, to me that’s almost a more powerful thing than anything else.”
He continued:
This debate about re-posting and stuff, that’s a losing debate. You should probably just frame it like this is kind of a passive violation, as opposed to saying this is innocent. And any time, last thing, any time you tell a judge, ‘Hey, your order is kind of ambiguous,’ good luck! I mean, because even if it is, that’s you’re going right into the ego, right into the heart of things with the judge by saying, ‘Hey, you weren’t really clear. We don’t know if we broke any rules.’ That’s tough sledding, no matter who the judge is.
Former President Donald Trump lied about his crowd size (again) on Tuesday.
NBC News’ Vaughn Hillyard was in New York City to cover Trump’s hush money trial, so he was able to get a firsthand look at the crowds who were expected to gather either in support of the ex-president or against. Trump, while speaking to press before entering the courtroom
on Tuesday, claimed that there was such a big police presence in the area that his supporters “can’t get near this courthouse.”
Hillyard, unless he was at the wrong courthouse, painted a very different picture
of the scene outside — plainly stating, “Just…not true.”
Trump just claimed that the police have shut down the streets around the courthouse for blocks & that his protesters can’t be here.
Just…not true. There is one pro-Trump person here & the main street along the courthouse is open to traffic. pic.twitter.com/JyrH3ZkNrX
Author Salman Rushdie recalled “dancing” outside the jail where his alleged attacker is being held after recovering from the injuries sustained in a brutal knife attack in 2022.
Rushdie joined Jon Stewart on The Daily Show on Monday to discuss his new memoirKnife, which dives into his life following the attack
. Rushdie was put on a ventilator after the stabbing and lost sight in his right eye, among other injuries
.
Rushdie became a target of religious extremists after the publication of his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses, which a depiction of the prophet Muhammad that inspired Iran’s former spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to issue a religious edict calling for Rushdie to be killed. Rushdie went into hiding for years after this.
Rushdie opened up to Stewart about revisiting the scene where he was stabbed at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqu, New York.
“I had this desire to go revisit the scene of the crime and show myself that I was standing up where I fell down,” the author said.
A “last minute” want struck him during the visit and he decided to take a five minute drive to the jail where his alleged attacker is being held.
“You didn’t have a desire necessarily to see this individual?” Stewart asked.
“No, I just wanted to see the jail!” Rushdie said, earning laughter from Stewart and the audience.
The author recalled feeling himself dancing as he observed the jail from outside.
“I thought, you know, he’s in there and I’m out here. That feels good. And what happened is a weird thing happened. My feet started dancing,” he said.
Stewart asked if Rushdie was literally dancing, to which he said, “No, my feet were dancing!”
“I can imagine this gentleman just glancing out the window for no apparent reason going, is that the guy…?” Stewart joked.
“Yeah, and he’s dancing in the carpark!” Rushdie said.
The trial of Rushdie’s alleged attacker Hadi Matar was recently delayed
ahead of publication of Rushdie’s book. Matar is charged with attempted second degree murder and second degree assault.
Rushdie said Matar admittedly had never read a word he wrote and had “messed” up his head by spending “four years in a basement playing video games and watching videos.”
Donald Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche was scolded in court on Tuesday as his client faced a hearing to determine whether he violated a gag order issued by Judge Juan Merchan.
“You’re losing all credibility with the court!” Merchan told Blanche at one point, according to reporters from the New York Times
and other outlets present in the courtroom — as the lawyer made a series of arguments to justify Truth Social posts
made by Trump targeting people involved with his Manhattan trial. The gag order
prevents the former president from attacking witnesses, court staff, jurors, and family members of those involved in the trial.
Trump is facing more than 30 felony counts of falsifying business documents to conceal hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to cover up an alleged affair. Trump has denied all wrongdoing and claimed the affair never happened.
Merchan informed Blanche he was “losing credibility” on Tuesday after the attorney argued Trump is trying to follow the gag order.
“This gag order,” Blanche told the judge in response. “We are trying to comply with it.”
Blanche got into a tense back and forth with Merchan over an argument that Trump’s reposts on Truth Social do not fall under the guidelines of the gag order. Trump has often reposted a flurry of posts in support of himself. A surprising one came in the form of a “thank you”
to convicted felon and federal inmate Michael Avenatti. The lawyer, convicted of defrauding Daniels, has been arguing that Trump cannot get a fair trial in New York, an argument Trump shared.
Trump also shared a quote from Fox News host Jesse Watters, in which he claimed
that they are “catching liberal activists lying” to the judge in the hush money trial. Trump shared one line from the larger comments
Watters made.
“Your client manipulated what was said and put it in quotes,” the judge told Blanche on Tuesday, arguing Trump’s post was simply quoting one line from Watters and was not a repost.
Blanche argued reposts are Trump confronting “two systems of justice,” which also earned a rebuke from the judge.
“There’s two systems of justice in this courtroom? That’s what you’re saying?” he said.
That line doesn’t seem to sit well with Justice Merchan.
“There’s two systems of justice in this courtroom? That’s what you’re saying?” he asks, bristling.
Blanche puts that sentiment in his client’s mouth, and the exchange moves on.
Judge Merchan pushed back against Blanche’s lengthy argument that reposts on social media would not violate Trump’s gag order, arguing the act is not “passive.” Asked what case law backed up his claims, Blanche said, “I don’t have any case law” and said the argument is “common sense.”
MSNBC’s Vaughn Hillyard reported from Manhattan that Blanche “met the scorn of Judge Merchan” and was “struggling” in court as the judge struggled to understand the lawyer’s arguments.
For posts from Trump that were not reposts from other accounts, Blanche argued those were responses to attacks from Daniels and others, but failed to name the posts that Trump was responding to when pressed by the judge.
Judge Juan Merchan heard arguments Tuesday morning on whether his gag order has been followed, and former President Donald Trump is not reacting well to the morning’s proceeding.
At issue are the 10 separate times that the prosecution is claiming that the defendant, Trump, has violated the gag order
directed by Judge Merchan to prevent tampering with potential witnesses and jurors. The prosecution claims that Trump violated the order in seven instances of Truth Social posts and three instances of campaign posts.
Trump’s lawyer’s arguments were not well received by Judge Merchan, who notably dismissed Trump’s attorney as saying he was “losing credibility
” with the court. Journalists in the courtroom reported a series of tense back-and-forths that seemed to have triggered the defendant, former President Trump.
Every single Legal Scholar and Expert said that Soros backed prosecutor, Alvin Bragg, has “no case.” This list includes Jonathan Turley, Gregg Jarrett, Byron York, Andrew McCarthy, Mark Levin, Alan Dershowitz, Mike Davis, David Rivkin, Kristin Shapiro, Brad Smith, Andrew Cherkasky, and many more. SO WHY WON’T THEY DROP THIS CASE? Alvin Bragg never wanted to bring it – thought it was a joke. Was furious at lawyer MARK POMERANTZ (will he be prosecuted?) for what he did!
Then quickly followed
for good measure the ALL CAPS rage post:
HIGHLY CONFLICTED, TO PUT IT MILDLY, JUDGE JUAN MERCHAN, HAS TAKEN AWAY MY CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH. EVERYBODY IS ALLOWED TO TALK AND LIE ABOUT ME, BUT I AM NOT ALLOWED TO DEFEND MYSELF. THIS IS A KANGAROO COURT, AND THE JUDGE SHOULD RECUSE HIMSELF!
Just minutes after, the Trump campaign sent a fundraising email with a subject line that read “I’m being held hostage!”
Former President Donald Trump has regularly argued
that “every legal scholar” disagrees with his prosecution for allegedly falsifying business records in his hush money trial — and one of them may have finally revealed himself!
Jed Handelsman Shugerman, a law professor at Boston University, wrote a blistering op-ed
in The New York Times Tuesday stating that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump in his hush money trial was not just a “legal embarrassment,” but a “historic mistake.” He had been critical of the indictment when it was announced a year ago, but now that prosecutors laid out their case in opening statements, Shugerman is even more skeptical about their framing of the hush money cover-up as “election interference”:
In Monday’s opening argument, the prosecutor Matthew Colangelo still evaded specifics about what was illegal about influencing an election, but then he claimed, “It was election fraud, pure and simple.” None of the relevant state or federal statutes refer to filing violations as fraud. Calling it “election fraud” is a legal and strategic mistake, exaggerating the case and setting up the jury with high expectations that the prosecutors cannot meet.
The most accurate description of this criminal case is a federal campaign finance filing violation. Without a federal violation (which the state election statute is tethered to), Mr. Bragg cannot upgrade the misdemeanor counts into felonies. Moreover, it is unclear how this case would even fulfill the misdemeanor requirement of “intent to defraud” without the federal crime.
In stretching jurisdiction and trying a federal crime in state court, the Manhattan D.A. is now pushing untested legal interpretations and applications.
He later wrote:
Eight years after the alleged crime itself, it is reasonable to ask if this is more about Manhattan politics than New York law. This case should serve as a cautionary tale about broader prosecutorial abuses in America — and promote bipartisan reforms of our partisan prosecutorial system.
Shugerman gives the prosecution some benefit of the doubt, writing that they could still “have some latitude to develop their case during trial.”
Alec Baldwin received a rare defense from Fox News anchor Brian Kilmeade and others after he was confronted in a coffee shop by a person heckling him over the infamous Rust shooting and demanding the actor declare, “free Palestine.”
Video surfaced this week of Baldwin inside the Maman coffee shop in New York where the actor can be seen on the phone. The agitator, identified on X as “Crackhead Barney & Friends,” first asked why Baldwin “killed that lady,” referring to late cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Hutchins was killed in October 2021 on the set of Rust in New Mexico after a live round was put into a gun being used for a scene. The film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, was sentenced
to 18 months this year for involuntary manslaughter. Baldwin, a producer on the movie and the actor in the scene in question, pleaded not guilty to involuntary manslaughter and is awaiting trial in July, though there is a motion to dismiss from his legal team.
In the video of Baldwin at the coffee shop, the agitator holding the phone said she would leave the actor alone if said “free Palestine just one time” amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Baldwin ended up holding the door open to allow the woman to leave as he told an employee he was being harassed. The woman continue demanding he say, “free Palestine,” and Baldwin eventually smacks the phone, ending the video.
“I do not blame him at all,” Kilmeade said Tuesday on Fox & Friends after watching the video.
Ainsley Earhardt added she felt “sorry” for Baldwin and argued the footage showed he was “trying to remain calm” as he was being screamed at.
“I know he has a temper, but anybody would react like this,” Kilmeade said. “This is something we have to deal with. I had a similar situation happen. You say to yourself, do I want to make this a bigger situation or do I want to just walk away? And he’s trying to walk away and tell her to come out.”
Kilmeade also made it clear on X that he fully backs Baldwin’s actions.
“[Alec] is right here!! These people are insane!” he wrote.
Baldwin is a vocal critic of Fox News and he’s faced plenty of criticism
on the network over his political activism, controversies, and parodying of Trump on Saturday Night Live. Those SNL skits includedFox & Friends and portrayals of Kilmeade plenty of times.
Fox’s Kilmeade and others did defend the actor in December too over another tense exchange with a pro-Palestinian protester in New York City.
“Uhh, Alec? We’re in your corner on this one,” Kilmeade said
at the time.
Former president and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump defended Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) from attacks leveled at him by Trump’s base, including his own son, during an interview on Monday.
While speaking with radio host John Fredericks, Trump fielded a question about the calls for Johnson’s ouster as a result of his support for foreign aid bills for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan that passed the House last week.
“Much of our MAGA base is upset with Speaker Mike Johnson,” observed Fredericks before asking Trump “How do you square this divide now between MAGA and Mike Johnson, with your support of him and our base?”
“Well, look, we have a majority of one, okay? So it’s not like he can go and do whatever he wants to do,” began Trump. “I think he’s a very good person. You know, he stood very strongly with me on the NATO when I said that NATO has to pay up, and they have to pay up soon and fast — and he has stood strongly on that. He agrees with that.”
“He also got some of the money in the form of a loan, quite a bit of money in the form of a loan,” he continued. “But it’s a tough situation when you have [a majority of] one. I think he’s a very good man, I think he’s trying very hard, and again: We’ve gotta have a big election. We’ve gotta elect some people in Congress, much more than we have right now.”
Trump’s defense of Johnson comes as some of his most stalwart supporters in Congress and the media, including
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Steve Bannon, excoriate the speaker for having “totally sold us out.”
Even Donald Trump Jr., the former president’s firstborn son, has denounced Johnson in recent days, charging
Johnson with “giving Dems exactly what they want.”
Enough already! If you ever even begin to start believing anything anyone in Republican leadership tells you just watch this. Pay close attention to those that don’t seem bothered by this. They’re not our friends. pic.twitter.com/rj2NMGBarg
“Enough already! If you ever even begin to start believing anything anyone in Republican leadership tells you just watch this. Pay close attention to those that don’t seem bothered by this. They’re not our friends,” declared Trump Jr. in one social media post accompanying a montage of Johnson speaking with music from Curb Your Enthusiasm playing in the background.
