IMPRECATIONS: DefSec's warrior pastor speaks!

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2026

It has now come to this:  We'd planned to speak today about the recent murder of Stephanie Minter, age 41, in Fairfax County, Virginia. Also, about the recent murder of Sheridan Gorman, age 18, on the Chicago lakefront. 

Last night, on the Fox News Channel, Trace Gallagher alleged that CNN and MSNOW have refused to report or discuss these recent killings. We had planned to cite the tribal siftings—the tribal evasions—involved in this state of affairs. 

We Blues! As the "democratization of media" has helped split this nation into warring tribes, we Blues have disappeared important news topics too! We had planned to go there today—but thanks to Michael Luciano's report at Mediaite, we can tell you instead that it has now come to this: 

Hegseth’s Pastor Agrees With Interviewer Who Says ‘I Pray That God Kills’ Democratic Candidate

The pastor and spiritual adviser to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth agreed with a podcaster’s wish that God kill state Rep. James Talarico (D-TX).

Brooks Potteiger is a pastor at Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, a church in the Nashville area that Hegseth attends. In August, Hegseth held a Christian religious service at the Pentagon, where Potteiger was invited to say a prayer.

Last Tuesday, Potteiger appeared on the Reformation Red Pill podcast, where host Joshua Haymes, who is also a member of Pilgrim Hill, made some astonishing remarks about Talarico. This month, Talarico won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate after having spoken openly about his Christian faith while also opposing Christian nationalism, to which Hegseth subscribes.

Just to be clear, we're speaking here about Secretary Hegseth's pastor, not about Secretary Hegseth himself. According to Luciano, that pastor agreed, on a recent podcast, with some "astonishing" remarks. 

With respect to those remarks, How astonishing were they? We'll offer a fuller transcript below, but here's what Luciano reported next: 

[continuing directly from above]
“I pray that God kills him,” Haymes said. “Ultimately, that means killing his heart and raising him up to new life in Christ.”

“Right,” Potteiger agreed. “We want him crucified with Christ.” 

It gets worse, as you can see below. But that's what Luciano reported. 

Luciano's report continues from there. We'll suggest that you read his report and look at the videotape it includes.

In our view, it's an important report—a report which helps capture what Plato once called "the [difficulty] of the time." 

At this site, we've been puzzled by Hegseth's demeanor ever since 2023. During that year, we started watching him on Fox & Friends Weekend. 

Again, it isn't Secretary Hegseth who made the remarks in question. But can a large, highly "diverse" modern nation expect to survive the "democratization" to which we've referred? 

In our view, the answer isn't clear. That said, here's a fuller chunk of the conversation which now sits out there on the web for anyone to be influenced by. 

The Christian pastors are talking about James Talarico, age 36, the Texas Senate nominee of whom they disapprove:

HAYMES (3/17/26): This is the kind of guy you pray imprecatory psalms against, and I mean that actually. First and foremost, we pray that a man like this will be cut to the heart. My wife and I were talking about this in the car the other day...

Public enemies—these are the orcs at the gate. You are not called to love the barbarian horde that is planning to break into your city and, you know, pillage, plunder, rape and mutilate you and your people. You don't love that horde. That is your enemy, and this is where you have imprecatory psalms. This is where you pray, strongly. 

The Psalmist is not shy. "God, destroy them. Make them as dung on the ground," right?  Madison and I were talking about that...

I pray that God kills him. Ultimately, that means killing his heart and raising him up to new life in Christ. That's the first thing.

POTTEIGER: Right. We want him crucified with Christ. 

HAYMES: That's exactly right.

POTTEIGER: I want him to be—Saul of Tarsus? Talarico of Tarsus! That's what I want. Who would say, "I was holding the garments while they stoned Stephen and now I'm the —" Yeah! That's what we want.

HAYMES: Yes. We want death and new life, right? And if it would not be within God’s will to do so, stop him by any means necessary, O God! That’s why we pray imprecatory psalms, even in our Lord’s Day service. We're Whole Bible Christians, after all. 

Haymes and his wife had been talking about making the others as dung! At any rate, what's a "Whole Bible Christian?" 

With no disrespect intended, you'll have to Google that up. 

What did those Whole Bible believers literally mean by the various things they said? Each person can puzzle that out. But whatever these two Christians actually meant, we regard what they said as dangerous.

At any rate, that's a slightly larger chunk of what the two Christians said. It's now floating around on the web for everyone in the country to hear.

Regarding what we've transcribed, we'll note that it's Haymes who does most of the talking. But it's Potteiger, the DefSec's pastor, who provides some of the more colorful talk. 

Does Potteiger want the candidate killed, or does he want the candidate converted? We can't tell you how to read that. We can tell you this: 

On that same day—on Tuesday, March 17—Greg Gutfeld and Emily Compagno engaged in dangerous secular talk concerning Talarico. They did so on our nation's most-watched "cable news" program, The Five. 

When they emitted some truly remarkable statements, no major figure in Blue America deigned to say a word. Over here in Blue America, our major news orgs have decided that the Fox News Channel doesn't even exist.

Rather plainly, The Five is a "news show" in name only. In reality, it's a propaganda / entertainment entity—a dim-witted corporate messaging vehicle whose co-hosts may or may not be qualified to participate in an actual TV "news" program.

We Blues! The people we've been trained to trust won't report or discuss this ongoing situation. We'll guess that it's safer and easier to look away—to refuse to discuss the real world.

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, we'll show you what our cowardly kittens are choosing to enable. We'll transcribe the remarkable comments emitted by Gutfeld and Compagno.

We'll transcribe what the messengers said. All in all, the game works like this:

Silo Red cranks it out. Silo Blue runs off and hides!

Tomorrow: What the two messengers said

TUESDAY: Did anyone have the slightest idea...

TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2026

...what Bessent was talking about? We've often cited "complexification" as one of the principal scourges of our failed or failing political culture. 

Thanks to "segregation by viewpoint," citizens tend to hear only one set of arguments, opinions and facts. They hear the claims which are preferred by their own tribal group, and they hear little else. 

But then, there's also the scourge of "complexification!" Consider what happened when Scott Bessent seemed to speak with Kristen Welker on Sunday's Meet the Press. 

Their imitation of conversation was quickly complexificated. Did anyone out in TV Land understand what the two were allegedly talking about? Also, who created more of the incoherence—Welker or Bessent?

We'll transcribe and you can decide. The policy discussion to which we refer started fairly early on, with Welker asking this: 

WELKER (3/22/26): All right. Let me talk about your announcement this past week. 

On Friday, the Treasury Department lifted sanctions on Iranian oil stored on tankers, a move that would effectively allow Iran to get more than $14 billion of oil revenue. Why is the U.S. helping to fund a country that it’s currently at war with, Mr. Secretary? 

Fellow citizens, tell the truth! At this point, were you already struggling to hold on? 

According to Welker, Treasury had lifted sanctions on Iranian oil—but apparently, only on Iranian oil which was "stored on tankers." 

We'll bite! Why would Iran be storing oil on tankers? We'll guess that few viewers knew. 

At any rate, Welker said this lifting of sanctions would allow Iran to score $14 billion. So why would the United States want to do such a thing? Bessent started like this: 

BESSENT (continuing directly): Again, Kristen, why don’t we have good facts here? That Iranian oil was always going to be sold to the Chinese. It was going to be sold at a discount. So which, which is better, Kristen? The uh, which is better? If oil prices spike to $150 and they were getting 70% of that? Or oil prices below $100? It’s better to have them where they are now. And to be clear, we had always planned for this contingency. 

Bessent wasn't finished at this point. By way of contrast, we'll guess that most viewers already were. 

For ourselves, we'll be honest. Already, we don't have the slightest idea how Bessent's reply connected to Welker's question. Nor do we have any clear understanding of what Bessent's statements actually meant. 

He said the oil in question—the oil which has been "stored on tankers"—was always going to be sold to China, presumably under terms of the pre-existing sanctions (whatever they were) or then again maybe not. Assuming that statement is accurate, he now seemed to say—several statistics were now flashed around—that Iran would gain less cash from the sale of the oil if the sanctions are lifted. 

Possibly, that would happen because the release of the oil in question was going to drive "oil prices" down. But we're basically guessing here. 

Is that what Bessent was saying? To be honest, we still have no clear idea, even two days later. That said, this initial statement by Bessent continued, with the stiff-necked secretary saying this:

BESSENT (continuing directly): About 140 million barrels are out on the water. In essence, we are Jiu-Jitsuing the Iranians. We are using their own oil against them. We have a much better line of sight, to be clear, at Treasury, when this oil goes to— If it goes to Indonesia, if it goes to Japan, if it goes to Korea, we have a much better line of sight and are able to block accounts that the oil goes into. 

When it goes into China it completely gets recycled. So to be clear, that 14 billion number is grossly overstated. 

In a word, NFI! Concerning the meaning of this continuation, we have No F**king Idea! 

Does that passage mean that the oil in question will now be sold to places other than China? That sounds like it might be what it means, as we carefully read the transcript today. But as we watched this answer fly by on Sunday, we had no freaking idea. 

As you can see, Bessent had thrown a puzzlement in at the end: 

"So to be clear," the gentleman said, possibly just to be ironic, "that 14 billion number is grossly overstated." 

We had (and have) no idea how that connected to anything Bessent had previously said. Welker may have been puzzled too. Possibly grasping at straws, she decided to say and ask this:

WELKER (continuing directly): Let me unpack what you’re just saying. First of all, how much is it? And second of all, I don’t hear you disputing that Iran will get some of the money. 

"How much is it?" Welker now said, seeming to refer to Bessent's claim that her initial $14 billion figure was just plain wrong, all wrong. She also seemed to ask why Iran should be getting any money at all from the sale of the oil. In the short run, the next few volleys went like this: 

BESSENT (continuing directly): Iran always—already gets a huge amount of the money because Iran is the largest sponsor of state terrorism and China has been funding them.

WELKER: So it was always part of the plan to un-sanction Iranian oil?

BESSENT: Again, we unsanctioned the— At Treasury, we plan for all contingencies. We have break-the-glass plans. And to be able— 

This water—this oil is floating out in Asia, and it is mostly our Asian allies—the U.S. gets virtually no oil from the Gulf. We are energy sufficient. So when we un-sanction this, rather than the oil going to China, it can go to Japan. It can go to Korea. It can go to Indonesia. It can go to Malaysia.

WELKER: And it can go to Iran too. I mean, isn’t the point that the sanctions were in place to prevent Iran from getting any of the money? They will have access to some of the money now.

BESSENT: No, again— Kristen, you’re missing the point. So, please listen to me. 

By now, the oil—or perhaps the water—was "floating out in Asia." Welker seemed to say that Iran might be able to sell some of its oil to itself!

"Kristen, you’re missing the point," Bessent said. "So, please listen to me." 

What he said about Welker might have been true (or not). But is there any reason to think that his proposed solution would have helped? 

As you can see in the Meet the Press transcript, this attempt at a policy chat continued at length from there, creating a type of "Who's on First" for the modern complexified age. 

There's absolutely nothing unusual about public "discussions" like this. This sort of thing has been the norm for decades now—and given the way we humans are wired, no one seems to notice or care. 

Our final query: 

Many people were watching at home. Did anyone have the slightest idea what these titans were talking about?

EVASION(S): Compagno agrees with what he said!

TUESDAY, MARCH 24, 2026

Our discourse is built on evasions: Starting at 6 o'clock sharp, the yukking-it-up was nearly general over today's Morning Joe.

In fairness, Joe Scarborough has crafted a program which, on balance and in our opinion, is the most intelligent cable news program in the American firmament. (All in all, we'd have to say that the competition isn't even real close.)

Still, there are times when the MoJo crew can't seem to help themselves. Life can still be highly enjoyable in a failing nation when you're paid an extremely high salary, and the recipients of those extremely large salaries sometimes just wanna have fun. 

In a curious way, it reminds us of Chekhov's description—admittedly, in translation—of the sexually promiscuous Gurov. The description is offered right at the start of Chekhov's greatest-story-ever-written candidate, The Lady with the Lapdog: 

At every new meeting with an attractive woman, he forgot all about [previous bitter] experience, he wanted to enjoy life so much, and it all seemed so simple and amusing.

He wanted to enjoy life so much! Gurov changes as this widely praised story unfolds—but every once in a while, the high-end gaggle on Morning Joe seems to forget about the situation we all find ourselves in. 

On such occasions, they chuckle and joke and gambol and play. If only for one brief shining moment, it all seems so simple and amusing! 

Yesterday morning, out in reality, we spoke about a pitiful "sifting" which took place on Sunday morning's Fox & Friends Weekend program.  

One of the friends, Charlie Hurt, had been tasked with reporting a death. Semi-comically, this is what he said:

HURT (3/22/26): Former FBI director and special counsel Robert Mueller, who led the 2016 election interference probe tied to Russia, has died. His family releasing a statement, writing, quote, "With deep sadness, we are sharing the news that Bob passed away. His family asks that their privacy be respected." 

Former President George W. Bush, who nominated Mueller, says he is deeply saddened by the loss and praised him for his service to the country, writing, quote, "Bob transitioned the agency mission to protecting the homeland after September 11. He led it effectively, helping prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil."

While a cause of death has not been released, Mueller battled Parkinson's for several years, He was 81 years old. 

Addressing Red American viewers, Hurt reported what a former president had said about Mueller's death. But in his statement—presumably, it had been crafted by unnamed producers--he sifted out the highly unusual thing the current president had said!

Is something "wrong" with that current president—something which may even be dangerous? Red and Blue elites alike have agreed that we must never ask! 

Blue news orgs won't ask that question. On Red news orgs, we're told that the sitting president is so spectacularly competent that—according to Greg Gutfeld's repeated bumper sticker—we citizens "don't deserve him."

(When Gutfeld emits that bromide, he means it as a compliment to the sitting president—to the person who made that highly unusual remark about Mueller's death.)

Needless to say, that president has made other highly unusual comments in recent days. On Fox, they send waves of messenger children onto the air to disappear these unusual comments—or, on the rare occasion, to affirm the highly unusual things the sitting commander has said. 

Sometimes, the co-hosts affirm the highly unusual statements! So it was that Emily Compagno made the statement we've transcribed below on yesterday's edition of The Five. 

We have no doubt that Compagno was completely sincere in what she said. But to ask a slightly awkward question, in what universe should she be serving as a co-host of our failing nation's most-watched "cable news" program? 

That's a slightly awkward question! At any rate, last evening, on The Five, after a somewhat jumbled prologue, here's what Compagno said:  

COMPAGNO (3/23/26): You know, Trump called the Democrat [sic] Party "America's greatest enemy." And I agree—and how can you not, watching that? 

It was "the enemy within" all over again!  Compagno said she agreed with the president's statement! How can you not, she aked!

(For the record, Compagno was referring to the situation in which TSA workers are currently showing up for work but aren't getting paid.) 

At present, TSA workers aren't getting paid in a timely fashion. (They'll be reimbursed later on.)  Watching that ongoing situation—failing to mention President Trump's emerging role in this situation—Compagno said the sitting president had been right when he offered this highly unusual Truth Social post:

Truth Details 

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump 

Now with the death of Iran, the greatest enemy America has is the Radical Left, Highly Incompetent, Democrat [sic] Party! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT 

As we noted yesterday, the president posted that assessment as the weekend ended. Yesterday, on our most-watched "cable news" show, Compagno said she agreed with that highly unusual statement.

"How can you not?" she asked! 

On Sunday, the three friends had disappeared something the president said. On Monday, Compagno repeated this other highly unusual comment, then said she can't imagine how anyone could fail to agree with the president's remark. 

Full disclosure! Over the weekend, we went looking for the real Emily Compagno. We were surprised by the number of interview / profiles we found online, though we won't tell you what they said.

Compagno frequently laughs and smiles. We have no doubt that she's fully sincere. But should she be positioned as co-host on our nation's most-watched news show?

Given the ethos of this failing nation, it's an awkward question you ask!

Yesterday, Red American viewers were shielded from another unusual comment. This comment came from Gerard Baker, former editor-in-chief of the Murdoch empire's Wall Street Journal.

Under the reign of President Trump. "we [Americans] have become Baghdad Bob," Baker had rather remarkably said. That comment wasn't repeated on The Five. It was sifted—disappeared. 

Red American viewers were shielded from the difficulty of knowing what Baker had said. For Mediaite's report about Baker's remarks, you can just click here.

Information can be sifted—can be disappeared. Highly significant, basic news topics can also be disappeared. 

We Blues have frequently disappeared major topics over the past several years. We'll touch on that awkward matter tomorrow. For today, we'll close with one more fact about Compagno.

One week ago, on the March 17 edition of The Five, the gang pretended to discuss James Talarico. Even by the standards of this clownish imitation of a "cable news" program, the comments were hard to believe.

Gutfeld said he was "getting Ted Bundy vibes" from the Texas Senate candidate, Compagno then compared Talarico to a pair of religious cult leaders, including David Koresh of Branch Davidian / Waco fame.

Can a society expect to survive when its discourse functions this way? We plan to transcribe those comments on Thursday morning. But for today, we'll tell you this:

Those astounding comments have gone unmentioned in Blue America. So too with the astounding bogus claims made on March 3—astoundingly bogus claims made by all the messenger children, from Kat Timpf and Gutfeld on down.

In Blue America, our orgs don't want to ask if something is "wrong" with the sitting American president. Those orgs also prefer to pretend that the powerful Fox News Channel doesn't even exist.

As in The Sixth Sense, so too here? Has a society already died when its major orgs function this way?

Tomorrow, we'll talk about one of Blue America's major evasions. On Thursday, we'll force ourselves to transcribe what the co-hosts said about Talarico. Sic semper "news shows" like this!

Gurov emerges profoundly changed. Is it already too late for us? We'll type and let you decide!

Tomorrow: Major Blue evasion

MONDAY: Does Silo Blue ever "sift" the news?

MONDAY, MARCH 23, 2026

We'd say the answer is yes: The president's erratic behavior has continued all through this day. That said, we want to explore the claim that news orgs in Blue America may sometimes "sift" the news. 

For the record, what happens when a news org "sifts" the news—when a news org engages in selective reporting? For starters, such news orgs may report the facts which align with preferred tribal storylines, while possibly failing to report other relevant facts which don't. 

In this morning's report, we discussed a fairly obvious bit of "sifting" by the Fox News Channel—more specifically, by the trio of friends who co-host the four-hour morning show, Fox & Friends Weekend. Now, let's turn to the corresponding news report in yesterday's New York Times.

We refer to yesterday's front-page report about the death of Robert Mueller. The lengthy report—essentially, it was an obituary—was written by Tim Weiner, a former national security correspondent for the Times and a highly regarded, best-selling author. 

For starters, credit where due:

In our view, the New York Times frequently tends to disappear the many borderline crazy statements the sitting president posts on Truth Social. In our view, this seems like a way of avoiding the need to report on a very important topic—the possible state of the sitting president's mental / emotional / cognitive health. 

In this case, credit where due! In this case, the president's "jaw-dropping" post about Mueller's death was not disappeared by the Times. Headline included, Weiner's report started like this: 

Robert S. Mueller III, 81, Dies; Rebuilt F.B.I. and Led Trump Inquiry

Robert S. Mueller III, who led the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 12 tumultuous years, brought politically explosive indictments as a special counsel examining Russia’s attack on the 2016 presidential election, and then concluded that he could neither absolve nor accuse President Trump of a crime, died on Friday. He was 81.

His family confirmed the death in a statement but did not say where he died or specify the cause. Last August, the family disclosed publicly that Mr. Mueller was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in the summer of 2021. The law firm WilmerHale, from which Mr. Mueller retired in 2022, said he died on Friday night in Charlottesville, Va.

Mr. Trump remained unforgiving of Mr. Mueller’s investigation even after Mr. Mueller’s death. On learning of it on Saturday, the president posted on Truth Social: “Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!”

Credit where due! On Fox, the highlighted statement had been disappeared. On this occasion, the New York Times sought safety in no such avoidance. 

On the other hand, it had initially seemed to us that yesterday's Times report glossed the facts, in a familiar way, about the last major assignment of Mueller's career. We refer to Mueller's work, alluded to above, "as special counsel in a case where the chief subject of the investigation was the president of the United States." 

Did the Times report gloss some facts about that matter? Weiner's account of the "Mueller report" started off like this: 

The final 448-page report went to [Bill] Barr, who by then was the attorney general, on March 22, 2019. Mr. Mueller had trusted Mr. Barr, his longtime colleague and a family friend, to deliver its conclusions, unvarnished, to the American people. He would be sorely disappointed.

The report concluded that Russia had systemically sought to help Mr. Trump win the election, and that the candidate and his campaign had encouraged their clandestine assistance. It laid out 10 cases in which the president and his aides had sought to impede the F.B.I. investigation. Its key passage read: “While this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” 

But the attorney general, while keeping the text of the report secret, ostensibly to redact sensitive information, announced only that “the Special Counsel’s investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.” 

Mr. Trump proclaimed that he had been “totally exonerated.” 

Yesterday, it seemed to us that this passage glossed the facts of this matter. Today, after rereading that part of the Times report, we're still puzzled by what it says. 

As you can see, the passage says that AG Barr failed to include the "key passage" in the Mueller report when he "announced" the statement quoted above, apparently on March 24, 2019. Here's the problem: 

On that same day, Barr sent a four-page letter about the Mueller report to the relevant congressional committees. Its contents were reported by the New York Times that very day—and in the relevant part of the letter, Barr instantly quoted the "key passage" which he supposedly didn't "announce."

Here's the relevant New York Times report. (Headline: "Mueller Finds No Trump-Russia Conspiracy, but Stops Short of Exonerating President on Obstruction.") The report appeared on the front page of the Times on March 25, 2019, with an online link to the four-page letter. 

The "key passage" quoted by Weiner was instantly cited in that Times report. Unless we misunderstand what Weiner was saying, that "key passage" in the Mueller report was hardly a secret.

We're sorry now that we ever mentioned this (dated) topic this morning. In all honesty, we now have no idea what Weiner and his editors meant by the passage we've posted. 

That said:

Back in real time, we Blues were sure that President Trump surely had to have committed obstruction of justice. From that day right on through yesterday, it has always seemed to us that we Blues proceeded to overstate the degree of perfidy attributable to Barr, in precisely the way yesterday's report seems to have revived.

What were Weiner and his editors referring to in the passage we've posted? At this point, we don't know. But tribal grievances never die in highly tribalized times like these. That fact is put on display every day of the week on the Fox News Channel's highest-rated programs.

We're sorry we brought this up. But yes—Blue orgs, like their Red counterparts, do sometimes "sift" the news. They sometimes report the facts they like while omitting the facts they don't.

As seen on yesterday's Fox & Friends Weekend, Fox News is clownishly sunk in this practice. We'll be exploring such behaviors all week.

In conclusion: In conclusion, credit where due! The New York Times reported the sitting president's extremely strange Truth Social post about Robert Mueller's death! 

All too often (in our view), the timorous newspaper fails to report such potentially worrying conduct by the sitting president.

SIFTING(S): The sitting president said he was glad!

MONDAY, MARCH 23, 2026

Fox News disappeared what he said: On this campus, we almost never post on Sundays. For that reason, the intrepid Joe DePaolo beat us to the story. 

We'd seen it happen in real time, early Sunday morning. Over at Mediaite, DePaolo reported the sifting of information Fox News engineered. 

Indeed, DePaolo went well beyond what we ourselves had seen. Under a somewhat colorful headline, his report started like this:

Fox News Completely Ignores Trump’s Bonkers Statement on Mueller’s Death On Air

President Donald Trump’s shocking post celebrating the death of former FBI Director Robert Mueller has not received a single on-air mention over at Fox News.

According to a search using the media monitoring service Snapstream, Fox News has not mentioned the president’s statement a single time on its air since Mueller’s passing on Saturday.

“Good, I’m glad he’s dead,” Trump wrote on Truth Social Saturday afternoon. “He can no longer hurt innocent people!” 

That jaw-dropping postscript on the life of a decorated public servant has received nary a mention on air at Fox News. The network’s chief political analyst Brit Hume did denounce Trump’s comments in a post on X. And other network contributors have—in social media posts—similarly condemned Trump’s remarks. The network also did cover Trump’s remarks on its website, and in an X post on the Fox News account, But that criticism has not been seen by Fox News viewers. And viewers haven’t heard about Trump’s words at all.

The sitting president had made a "jam-dropping" statement about Mueller's death. But according to DiPaolo's research, viewers of the Fox News Channel hadn't heard about that at all!

At this point, the story gets even better—or you might say it gets even worse.

As DiPaolo continued, he reported what viewers had heard about Mueller's death on Sunday morning's Fox & Friends Weekend broadcast.  On this campus, we ourselves had seen that carefully sifted report. 

The report was delivered by Charlie Hurt at 6:23 a.m. This is what we saw him say:

HURT (3/22/26): Former FBI director and special counsel Robert Mueller, who led the 2016 election interference probe tied to Russia, has died. His family releasing a statement, writing, quote, "With deep sadness, we are sharing the news that Bob passed away. His family asks that their privacy be respected." 

Former President George W. Bush, who nominated Mueller, says he is deeply saddened by the loss and praised him for his service to the country, writing, quote, "Bob transitioned the agency mission to protecting the homeland after September 11. He led it effectively, helping prevent another terrorist attack on U.S. soil."

While a cause of death has not been released, Mueller battled Parkinson's for several years, He was 81 years old. 

That was Hurt's full statement. The three friends engaged in no further discussion of Mueller's death. 

Indeed, searching the Internet Archive records, we find no sign that Mueller was ever mentioned again during Sunday's four-hour broadcast. And yes, we ourselves were struck by the apparent "sifting" Fox producers had performed in fashioning the text which Hurt faithfully read.

As you may know, Fox & Friends Weekend is co-hosted by a trio of friends. They're very friendly with each other—and they're especially friendly with respect to the sitting president. 

Indeed, almost everyone at the Fox News Channel is very favorably disposed toward the sitting president (as is their perfect right). This helps explain the sifting of information seen in Hurt's brief report. 

In his statement, Hurt reported that Mueller had died—and he reported what one former president had said. But as DiPaolo noted, Hurt didn't report what the current sitting president—the person who's actually president now—had said! 

Even by Sunday morning, that "bonkers" statement by the sitting president had become the subject of a great deal of critical comment. 

Indeed, it was just as DiPaolo reported. Early Saturday afternoon, in one of his endless Truth Social posts, this is what he had said:

Truth Details 

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump 

Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people! President DONALD J. TRUMP 

By most peoples' reckoning, there he had gone once again! Unless you were watching Fox & Friends Weekend, where the unusual statement was sifted out—went completely unmentioned in Charlie Hurt's brief report.

Viewers were told what former president George W. Bush had said, but those same viewers weren't told what President Trump had said. His highly unusual statement was lovingly disappeared—was sifted, was edited out.

We're heavily working the term "sifted" today. We'll be using that term all this week. It refers to the highly selective way citizens are exposed to information and opinion under current arrangements, in which Silo Red and Silo Blue are the sources of large volumes of our journalism—of our public discourse.

Some news reports come from Silo Blue. Some come from Silo Red—and very rarely shall the twain meet. In this instance, the Fox News Channel had chosen to disappear the latest thing the sitting president had said.

In fairness, selective "sifting" of information works in various ways. The New York Times has also been inclined to disappear the sitting president's strangest remarks, though the paper didn't do so in this particular case.

We'll document that this afternoon. For now, we'll stop with this:

The president's "bonkers" comment about Robert Mueller was soon joined by another Truth Social post. In our view, this later post by the sitting president was even more "jaw-dropping:" 

Truth Details 

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump 

Now with the death of Iran, the greatest enemy America has is the Radical Left, Highly Incompetent, Democrat [sic] Party! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT

For the ten millionth time, there he had gone again! The Democrat [sic] Party is this nation's greatest enemy, the sitting American president remarkably said.

(For Mediaite's report on that astonishing comment, you can just click here.)

Almost surely, that astonishing comment by the president won't be mentioned on Fox News. As of now, the astonishing comment hasn't been reported by the New York Times, according to the Times search engine.

Discussion of the president's possible medical condition is scrupulously avoided by the Times. We live in a very dangerous time—a time when the sifting of information of information is general over this failing nation.

The sifting is general over the nation. As we'll note, sifted news emerges from Silo Blue as well as from Silo Red.

Coming soon, perhaps tomorrow: What Gutfeld, Compagno said