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We are currently being treated to a split screen that sums up the stark contrast in the world of journalism between inspirational courage versus spineless greed. On one side we have a courageous journalist who is standing up for our freedoms at the risk of his career and being targeted by Donald Trump. On the other, we have a “journalist” who recently apologized to a Trump family member for fact checking her and is slamming liberals all in the pursuit of selling more books about the alleged “cover up” of Joe Biden being old.

The first is veteran journalist and “60 Minutes” correspondent, Scott Pelley. The other, of course, is CNN’s Jake Tapper.

Since Tapper’s pathetic groveling to sell books has garnered so much press already, let’s start with what we saw from Pelley over the weekend while delivering the commencement address at Wake Forest University. Pelley told the students—and the nation given the clip has now gone viral—of the threats we now face under the Trump regime.

The long-time “60 Minutes” host warned: “In this moment, our sacred rule of law is under attack.” He passionately added, “Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack.”

The award-winning journalist continued by explaining the why behind Trump’s actions: "Why attack universities? Why attack journalism? Because ignorance works for power.”

He noted this is from an old playbook, “First, make the truth seekers live in fear, sue the journalists and their companies for nothing. Then, send masked agents to abduct a college student who wrote an editorial in her college paper defending Palestinian rights and send her to a prison in Louisiana charged with nothing. Then move to destroy the law firms that stand up for the rights of others."

Pelley flagged the sinister and intended impact of Trump’s efforts: “Insidious fear is reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our private thoughts.” He added, “The fear to speak, in America.”

"With that done, power can rewrite history with grotesque false narratives,” he explained, adding, “They can make criminals heroes and heroes criminals.” That last line certainly conjures up how Trump has redefined the terrorists who attacked our Capitol on Jan. 6 in the service of Trump as “patriots.”

Pelley wrapped up this portion of his speech citing another Trump line of attack, “Diversity is now described as illegal. Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word.” He explained, “This is an old playbook, my friends. There's nothing new in this." (You can watch the key portions of the speech in the clip below)

Pelley is 100% correct. Nothing Trump is doing is new. As Harvard Professor Steven Levitsky--and co-author of “How Democracies Die”—recently stated in our discussion, Trump is copying the aspiring tyrant playbook page by page.

Pelley’s words are even more courageous given at this very moment Trump is suing CBS/“60 Minutes” for $20 billion and Trump’s FCC has recently opened an investigation into CBS--both in connection with Trump’s fabricated claims that “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview of then VP Kamala Harris during the 2024 campaign. Trump’s FCC chair Brendan Carr has even threatened recently to take CBS’s broadcast license from CBS owned affiliates in connection with this investigation.

And just a few weeks ago, Pelley bravely criticized CBS’s own parent company, Paramount, for bending a knee to Trump--and he did so while on air hosting “60 Minutes.” Coming shortly after the resignation of “60 Minutes” long-time executive producer Bill Owens, Pelley explained, “Our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger.” Since it needs approval from the Trump administration, “Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways.” In other words, to curry favor with Trump, Paramount was pressuring “60 Minutes” to change their content to be less critical of Trump-but Pelley was not backing down.

That is what a profile in courage looks like. Pelley could be fired. Or worse-as Pelley knows—Trump could sign an executive order targeting him for DOJ investigations as he has done with former Trump officials like Chris Krebs, law firms who defy him and many more. Trump is no longer making empty threats to prosecute any who oppose him---he is now ordering it.

Now we come to CNN’s Jake Tapper and his weeks long sales pitch for his new book about the alleged cover up of Biden. One of the most effective criticisms of Tapper’s book came from Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show” last week when he joked, “How fucking weird it is that the news is selling you a book about news they should have told you was news a year ago, for free.”

As to Tapper’s claim there was a cover-up, Stewart quipped, “The thing is though, it was a terrible cover-up, because we all fucking knew.” He added, “There was no cover-up – poll after poll showed vast majorities of the public thought Biden was too old and too out of it to run again.”

I also love how Stewart comedically called out CNN for non-stop peddling the Tapper book. After showing clips of Tapper and other hosts hawking the book, Stewart remarked, “Some observers might think, ‘Do these CNN people work on commission? Is this a Girl Scout cookie situation?’” Adding, “Whoever sells the most Tapper books gets a Schwinn!”

Tapper—apparently grasping people on the left aren’t buying this book- went on right wing media outlets like Megyn Kelly’s show to sell it. On Kelly’s show, Tapper shared how he recently had called Lara Trump—the daughter in law of Donald—to apologize for pushing back on her claims during the 2020 campaign that Biden was mentally sliding. Why would Tapper apologize for his push back on Lara from October 2020?! The cover up in his book was supposedly taking place in 2023 and 2024. The reason, of course, was to get MAGA world to buy the book.

It's the same reason Tapper—while selling his book on another show--slammed some “liberal podcaster” who he won’t name for allegedly criticizing his 15 year-old son for wanting to be a police officer. And it’s why on Memorial Day, Tapper appeared on Piers Morgan’s show—which is loved by the right—where he declared the Biden cover up “may be worse” than Watergate.

Tapper knows a book bashing Biden and the Democrats will not cause Trump to target him or CNN. In contrast, if Tapper wrote the same book about Trump’s obvious cognitive decline, Trump would likely sign an executive order targeting Tapper or at the very least CNN. Even the Trump loving Scott Jennings who CNN has on air as an insurance policy against Trump’s ire wouldn’t save the network from that.

History has seen countless Jake Tappers--what we need more of are Scott Pelley’s. They are the ones who inspire others to stand up for what is right!

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