Cross-Examination

• Lemon dropped: CNN has cut more of its dead weight, firing longtime host Don Lemon on Monday. Lemon responded by claiming that he only became aware of his firing via his agent, alleging, “After 17 years at CNN I would have thought that someone in management would have had the decency to tell me directly.” However, CNN was quick to dispute Lemon’s “inaccurate” retelling of his firing: “He was offered an opportunity to meet with management but instead released a statement on Twitter.” Lemon was moved to “CNN This Morning” last year due to slumping ratings for his primetime show. That move did not pay off, as Lemon’s presence on the morning show resulted in several controversial statements from him that proved to negatively impact its ratings. However, it appears that the last straw for CNN was Lemon’s clash with Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy where he insinuated that since Ramaswamy isn’t black he can’t speak about issues affecting blacks.

• Biden hosts “Tennessee Three” for gun control: On Monday, Joe Biden hosted the infamous “Tennessee Three” at the White House as props for his anti-firearms agenda. Biden used these lawless, self-aggrandizing Democrat state lawmakers to gaslight the American public and blame guns rather than criminals for violent crime. Two of the three were booted from the Tennessee legislature for their part in leading an insurrection a protest takeover of the state house chamber that Biden praised as “standing up for kids” and “for our communities.” After those two were reinstated by their respective districts, Biden further blasted Republican state lawmakers who voted to hold them to account, calling it “shocking” and “undemocratic.” What is actually shocking is Biden’s callous eagerness to politicize the deaths of six innocent people at the hands of a murderous “transgender”-identifying individual in order to paint his gun-grabbing crusade as virtuous.

• Afghanistan to be terrorist launchpad: Is it 2001 all over again? Thanks to Joe Biden’s surrender and retreat, that certainly seems to be the case in Afghanistan with the Taliban, which is once again controlling the country and making it a haven for jihadi terrorists. Via the recent leaks of classified information, it has come to light that the Pentagon was aware of at least 15 terror plots being directed by “ISIS leaders in Afghanistan” that targeted “embassies, churches, business centers, and the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament.” This news contradicts Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent claims to Congress that “the Taliban has committed to prevent terrorist groups from using Afghanistan as a base for external operations that could threaten the United States or our allies, including al-Qaida and ISIS-K.” Biden’s failed leadership has made the world safer for terrorists and more dangerous for the law-abiding.

• Biden leaves more Americans behind: Speaking of the world becoming more dangerous, civil unrest and violence has been growing in Sudan over the last several weeks. It has gotten so bad that this past Saturday, U.S. military personnel evacuated the U.S. embassy in Khartoum. Moreover, because of the growing violence, the State Department said that it would not be able to help evacuate more than 16,000 American citizens currently in Sudan. James Carafano, a foreign policy expert at The Heritage Foundation, slammed the Biden administration’s decision by stating, “That the U.S. was unprepared and caught off guard is really inexcusable.” He further observed: “Since Biden became president, we have evacuated three U.S. embassies. That’s unprecedented in modern times.” What has been clear from the moment he took office is that furthering his political agenda more than protecting American citizens is what marks Biden’s presidency. And Biden’s weakness is only inviting more threats.

• Susan Rice heads for the exit: On the home front, Joe Biden’s top domestic policy advisor, Susan Rice, announced on Monday that she will be stepping down next month. Rice previously served in the Obama administration as national security advisor and UN ambassador (she started the Benghazi lies). Her tenure in the Biden administration has been one of the driving forces pushing leftist equity policies in government and onto the country. Indeed, she has had her fingers in the pie of nearly all of Biden’s hard-left policy pursuits, including his anti-Second Amendment agenda and the $1 trillion “infrastructure” bill. It would appear that Rice was one of Biden’s leading puppeteers ensuring that his tenure was effectively the Obama Agenda 2.0.

• Good news the NYT can’t stand: A University of Virginia alumnus who has stood staunchly against the Left’s woke “diversity, equity, and inclusion” agenda has become a member on the board of trustees at the school, and The New York Times is fit to be tied. Bert Ellis, a wealthy man who has long been a faithful supporter of UVA and co-owns a restaurant on the campus named The Spot, helped found an alumni group known as the Jefferson Council to counter the radical Left at the school. “This is our only opportunity to change/reverse the path to Wokeness that has overtaken our entire university,” Ellis writes regarding the mission of the Jefferson Council. The NYT, which has become little other than a propagandist outfit for the radical Left’s DEI Marxism, laments that Ellis is one of a growing number of conservatives who are successfully threatening the Left’s hegemony over the nation’s leading institutions of higher education. This is indeed good news for America because intellectual freedom feeds directly into impacting broader cultural freedom.

Headlines

• Tucker Carlson, the most watched host on cable news, ousted by Fox News (Mediaite)

• Decision to sack Carlson came straight from Rupert Murdoch (National Review)

• “Joe and Kamala are running”: Biden makes reelection bid official at age 80 (Daily Wire)

• Biden alarms with assertion there’s “no such thing as someone else’s child” (Fox News)

• Arkansas judge orders Hunter Biden to court to answer laptop questions (Free Beacon)

• Georgia prosecutor says Trump probe charging decisions coming in summer (Daily Wire)

• Supreme Court deals blow to oil companies being sued for climate change (National Review)

• WHO official warns of “high risk of biological hazard” in Sudan after fighters seize laboratory (Fox News)

• Riot police descend on Montana capitol as left-wing protesters shut down proceedings (Fox News)

• North Dakota governor signs law banning abortion at six weeks (AP)

• Bud Light sales down 17% after Dylan Mulvaney partnership (Daily Wire)

• Policy: What France’s pension protests mean for Americans (The Federalist)

• Humor: Sad: CNN fires Don Lemon after realizing he’s past his prime (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.