Raw Story

Three remaining “60 Minutes” veterans have decided on their futures with the beleaguered broadcast mainstay.

Longtime correspondents Lesley Stahl, Bill Whitaker and Jon Wertheim announced Friday they would stay on at the news magazine despite turmoil engulfing the CBS News division under the leadership of editor in chief Bari Weiss.

“We have had a hard time deciding whether to stay,” the trio wrote in a memo to their colleagues. “We don’t want to see ‘60 Minutes’ die.”

The three said they were “heartbroken” over the recent firings of their colleagues, including executive producer Tanya Simon and high-ranking producer Draggan Mihailovich, and they seemed to share concerns with correspondent Scott Pelley, who was also fired this week after challenging the new executive producer, Nick Bilton over the program's direction.

“We feared that our returning might be construed as an endorsement of the existing power structure," the three wrote. "That is simply, categorically not the case."

“Newsrooms are not supposed to be run like dictatorships,” they added in their memo.

Continuing questions about Donald Trump’s health were not helped on Thursday during an Oval Office press availaibility that led to more questions about his ability to keep up at his current pace.

On MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” co-hosts Johnathan Lemire and Willie Geist highlighted the 79-year-old president “slumped’ in his chair as EPA Head Lee Zeldin talked about clean coal, with the two pundits observing the president was clearly asleep.

That led to jokes about the president’s people defining the napping as an extended “blink,” with Lemire commenting, “I believe the White House pushback of ‘’He was blinking, you moron, ‘is how they would engage reporters who would point out on Twitter that the president seemed to be asleep.”

“So this was yesterday, the scene here,” he added as a clip of the president with his eyes closed ran. “And there's other footage where he seems fully slumped to sleep to one side of his chair, and then he kind of shifts and falls asleep on the other side of the chair. I mean, it's a long blink. We could count it off if you'd like.”

“But this is becoming almost a daily occurrence,” he pointed out. “And as much as the White House likes to push back on this, there are questions about, you know, his health, his fitness. He had another physical at Walter Reed a week or so back. We haven't really gotten much in the way of results. A week from Sunday, he turns 80.”

He then pointed out, “We heard for four years about 'Sleepy Joe Biden.' You know, not that I like to credit John Heilemann with much, but the ‘Confession or projection’ construct here works really well. This is clearly, you know, President Trump projecting his own perhaps frailties and need for naps during the day.”

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A Justice Department lawyer astonished onlookers by arguing in federal court that the Trump administration could "bulldoze" the Statue of Liberty if they moved too quickly to be stopped.

The lawyer appeared Friday morning for oral arguments before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit over President Donald Trump's controversial White House ballroom project, which is under construction on the site of East Wing he ordered demolished last year without warning, and Judge Patricia Millett pressed the attorney on the matter.

"If the government decides very quickly to bulldoze the Statue of Liberty, the people whose ancestors — that was the first thing they saw coming to this country, but the govt moved too fast — nothing can be done?" she asked, according to Politico's Kyle Cheney, who was in the courtroom.

"I think that's right, yes," agreed the attorney, who was not identified by the reporter.

The courtroom exchange stunned social media users.

"They’re out of their minds," marveled Fox News contributor Jessica Tarlov.

"There is nothing left of the Justice Department I worked at," lamented former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance.

"We voted to make him God Emperor of the United States," quipped HuffPost's S.V. Dáte.

"I honestly thought this was a joke," offered The Bulwark's Cathy Young.

"The Trump Admin talking about bulldozing the Statue of Liberty … sick, sick stuff," muttered California Gov. Gavin Newsom's official account.

"Feels like we should have the 'You Can't Just Bulldoze the Statue of Liberty Act' introduced and passed rather quickly now, right Congress?" suggested political strategist Thomas C. Bowen.

"I don't think this is going to help the DOJ," commented attorney Kevin Baum.

"Under Lujan itself, the lawyer’s answer is almost certainly wrong," opined law professor Michael Morley. "A tourist, or even better an art or architecture specialist, who had bought a ticket to fly to New York at a particular time to go look at or study the statue would almost certainly have standing to challenge its destruction. The destruction of the statute would be a tragedy and should absolutely never occur and there should be some way to stop it. It’s not clear that aesthetic injury *should* be sufficient to satisfy article III? Standing doesn’t even seem to be the biggest hurdle under currently doctrine here? I’m not sure who would have a cause of action to challenge the destruction?"

A former federal prosecutor warned on Wednesday that President Donald Trump is hiding the enormous cost of his most heinous scandal right under the noses of Americans.

Harry Litman, a former deputy assistant attorney general, argued in a new Substack essay that Trump's "[lurching] from scandal to scandal like a drunken sailor" had effectively distracted the American public from his intensified bombing campaigns in South America. He added that the strikes have not only killed close to 200 people, but also "violate the law and bring our country into disrepute."

"We are already giving this tinpot dictator far more attention than he deserves, and yet not nearly enough to keep vigil over the enormous costs of his lawlessness," Litman wrote.

Litman noted scandals like Signalgate — when multiple top Trump officials leaked sensitive military operation plans to Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, through a private encrypted messaging platform not approved for government use — and the heavily redacted Jeffrey Epstein files have been largely swept under the rug by Trump's repeated lawlessness.

Litman added that the bombing campaign carries an enormous cost and highlights the need for a more wide-ranging oversight regime once the Trump administration is out of office.

"Two hundred people killed in secret, in international waters, without legal authority, without evidence of effect, at a cost of nearly five billion dollars. It is still happening, under our noses as it were, but we’re focused on other things," he wrote.

Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL) said he thinks progressive influencer Hasan Piker should be banned from the United States after the United Kingdom blocked his visit with fellow commentator and his uncle, Cenk Uygur, TMZ reported on Wednesday.

The MAGA lawmaker was walking on Capitol Hill when a TMZ reporter asked Fine to comment on Piker's entry to the country being revoked over the weekend. The two were scheduled to speak at the SXSW London Festival but were turned away "because of their criticism of Israel," The BBC reported.

"Well I don't think he should be allowed into America, so I think that's a good start," Fine said.

The TMZ reporter responded and asked Fine, "What about freedom of speech?"

"People have freedom of speech but I think when you're a terrorist you should be held responsible for that," Fine said. "And I think he's clearly a supporter of terror. He's a walking billboard for the problem of birth tourism. He was brought here by his Turkish family, they had him, then they took him home, made him hate America, then sent him in to torment us. The guy's a horrible human being and I wouldn't let him into my country if it was up to me, so I don't blame them."

Piker, who is an American citizen, has condemned Islamophobia and been an outspoken critic of MAGA and the Trump administration. He has a large social media following, primarily through streaming on Twitch and weighing in on political topics. He frequently discusses social issues and engages in debates with commentators across the political spectrum.

The reporter pushed back again and suggested that "banning him from a country is [a] pretty crazy step for someone who is expressing his opinion."

"And by the way, they're allowed to do that," Fine said.

When the reporter pressed the Republican again on freedom of speech, he repeated his talking point.

"He promotes Muslim terror, so I think they're making the right decision," said Fine, making the unsubstantiated claim. "I'm surprised they did it but I think they did the right thing."

The House of Representatives has voted to limit President Donald Trump's war powers in Iran.

House Democrats had been introducing such resolutions again and again to put pressure on Republicans, who had been consistently voting them down. However, this time, just enough Republicans crossed the aisle to pass the measure, with four GOP lawmakers joining in a 215-208 vote.

The votes invoke the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which in theory mandates that presidents remove forces from a conflict if Congress has not authorized continued operations within 60 days.

According to The Washington Post, Senate lawmakers "advanced a similar resolution last month on a procedural vote," which reflects "growing impatience with a war Congress hasn’t authorized."

This comes after House Foreign Affairs ranking Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) gave a fiery speech against the war earlier this week, saying, “We are trapped in a war that won’t end because an incompetent president launched it thinking of only his own ego while failing to prepare for the consequences. Diplomacy is the only exit from this, not more bombing, not more bluster.”

While the vote is a step forward to Congress reclaiming its war powers, the report noted, the resolution "faces sizable hurdles" as "to reach Trump’s desk, the Senate resolution would require a final vote in the chamber, which could be tough if every senator is voting" and it is unclear whether the resolution is "privileged" under Senate rules, meaning it advances to a vote automatically without needing approval of Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD).

Many Republicans who oppose the resolution have insisted that the war is nearly over anyway, with Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) saying, “We are not in hostilities. We are out there with almost the exact same number of forces that we continually keep in the region.”