HEALING: Laura Ingraham didn't ask...

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2025

...and Kelly doesn't care: "The sunshine of the prairie summer and fall months would come sifting down with healing and strength..."

As we noted yesterday—as we've noted in the past—Sandburg offered that mysterious claim near the end of his two-volume biography, Abraham Lincoln: The Prairie Years (1926).

Lincoln would soon be on his way from Illinois to the White House. He left "not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington." 

So the rail-splitter told the crowd at the Springfield railway station—the congregation to whom he would bid "an affectionate farewell." 

In fact, the healing of the American nation didn't come easily after he himself was shot and killed in April 1865. In truth, it isn't entirely clear that the healing ever took place at all.

That war had been fought between the Blue and the Grey. Today, we're involved in a great if undeclared civil war between the Red and the Blue. 

Could some sort of political genius accomplish some sort of healing now? Consider what happened just last night on a Fox News Channel program.

We refer to The Ingraham Angle, that channel's 7 p.m. show (that's 4 p.m. out on the coast). Midway through the program, Laura Ingraham spoke with Tom Homan. This was part of the background:

Trump Justice Dept. Closed Investigation Into Tom Homan for Accepting Bag of Cash

Tom Homan, who was later named President Trump’s border czar, was recorded in September 2024 accepting a bag with $50,000 in cash in an undercover F.B.I. investigation, according to people familiar with the case, which was later shut down by Trump administration officials.

The cash payment, which was made inside a bag from the food chain Cava, grew out of a long-running counterintelligence investigation that had not been targeting Mr. Homan, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the case.

Mr. Homan’s encounter with the undercover agents, recorded on audiotape, led him to be investigated for potential bribery and other crimes, after he apparently took the money and agreed to help the agents—who were posing as businessmen—secure future government contracts related to border security, the people said.

After Mr. Trump took office this year, Justice Department officials shut down the case because of doubts about whether prosecutors could prove to a jury that Mr. Homan had agreed to do any specific acts in exchange for the money, and because he had not held an official government position at the time of the meeting with undercover agents, the people added.

That was the start of the front-page report in Sunday's New York Times. One day earlier, MSNBC's Leonnig and Dilanian had first reported these allegations. To see their report, click here.

Say what? Today, Homan is a major player within the Trump administration. When he allegedly accepted that bag of cash, last year's campaign between Candidates Trump and Harris was still going on.

Their lone debate had taken place on September 10. Two weeks later, had Homan accepted a big sack of cash? Last night, it almost seemed that Laura Ingraham wanted to find out. 

Her interview with Homan started at 7:22 p.m. Three minutes later, she asked:

INGRAHAM (9/22/25): Tom, I want to give you a chance to address this article that came out over the weekend. It was on our always reliable MSNBC and they said that you took $50,000 in cash in a bag from an undercover FBI agent to help them win government contracts in Trump’s second term.

The DOJ said they concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing. But nevertheless, that story is out there and I imagine you want to respond to that.

For the record, it was the DOJ under President Trump which apparently "concluded there was no criminal wrongdoing" with respect to that bag of cash. Still, had Homan accepted that big sack of cash? And if he had accepted the cash, why would he have done that?

Ingraham had asked about the report. In this, his first response, Tom Homan described. or perhaps failed to describe, what he, Tom Homan, had done:

HOMAN (continuing directly): Absolutely. I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal. And you know, it’s hit piece after hit piece after hit piece. And I’m glad the FBI and DOJ came out and said, you know, said that nothing illegal happened, nothing—you know, no criminal activity.

You’re talking about a guy who spent 34 years enforcing law. I mean, I left a very successful business that I ran to come back and work for a government again. I’m back on a government paycheck. Not only did I sacrifice, my family sacrifices. I make sacrifices every day. I got more death threats than anybody. 

INGRAHAM: I know that.

HOMAN: I got a security team around me, but guess what? My kids don’t, my wife don’t. I mean, I haven’t lived with my wife in months because I don’t want her to be here right now with all the threats.

So after all the sacrifices, after serving my nation for all these years, they want to come out and dirty me up. And it’s not going to end. There’s a hit piece on me every two weeks. But keep coming, because you know what? Tom Homan isn’t going anywhere, Tom Homan isn’t shutting up, and Tom Homan’s gonna keep doing what he’s doing because working with President Trump is the greatest honor of my life. We’re making this country safer again every day and we’re gonna keep doing it.

So said Tom Homan, just last night, speaking about Tom Homan. "Tom Homan’s gonna keep doing what he’s doing, "Tom Homan assertively said.

Tom Homan also said that Tom Homan had done nothing illegal. According to various legal specialists, that statement may (or may not) be accurate.

That said, had Tom Homan actually accepted that big bag of cash? As you can see, Tom Homan hadn't said whether Tom Homan had actually done that!

Tom Homan hadn't said if Tom Homan accepted the cash! For that reason, Ingraham advanced this probing follow-up question:

INGRAHAM (continuing directly):  Thank you for joining us.

Thank you for joining us, she said! At that point, she teased the next topic, then went to a commercial break.

For whatever reason, Ingraham had waited until the end of the short interview segment before she asked about this topic. After Homan's rambling statement, she thanked him and went to a break.

Was that a serious attempt at journalism, or was that merely a set-up—a set-up engineered by the pro-Trump Fox News Channel? You can judge that one for yourself—but an earlier statement by Megyn Kelly seemed to illustrate the very deep hole we're all in at this point.

It's a very deep tribal hole—the kind of hole a nation is in when a functioning nation (or empire) has essentially broken apart. 

At this point, Kelly is a high-profile, somewhat flamboyant pro-Trump podcaster. There's no law against such a stance, but her initial reaction to the report about Homan and the cash had perhaps been a bit surprising.

She spoke on behalf of Red America. We DO NOT CARE, the podcaster wrote. 

Here's Mediaite's report:

Megyn Kelly Defends Declaring ‘We DO NOT CARE’ About Tom Homan Corruption Allegations

Former Fox News host turned successful podcaster Megyn Kelly declared over the weekend that she absolutely does not care about the allegation that Trump border czar Tom Homan was recorded accepting $50,000 to help with securing government contracts.

[...]

Carol Leonnig, who broke the story, posted the report to X over the weekend. Kelly quickly replied to Leonnig’s post and wrote, “We DO NOT CARE. Don’t bother @RealTomHoman he’s a national treasure.”

Lay off Homan, the podcaster said. We don't care whether he took that cash!

Later, Kelly provided a lengthy explanation of that initial post. In the course of that post, she offered a rather startling statement.

We'll start with that angry post tomorrow—but a former nation has come apart when a major segment of its population has reached the point Kelly described in that second post.

Question:

Should we bid this struggling nation an affectionate farewell? Laura Ingraham didn't ask—and Kelly doesn't care!

Tomorrow: According to Kelly, this is all her emerging tribe really wants to do