Lefties Losing It: What is Ariana Grande's beef with Sydney Sweeney?

Now it's time for Lefties Losing It, and let's start with the mad ravings of MSNBC anchor Lawrence O'Donnell, who is now just reporting his paranoid fantasies as facts. Here he seems to think that the Trump presidency is in its final dark days.

JD Vance is doing exactly what Gerald Ford did while the Nixon presidency was sinking and Richard Nixon was under increasing pressure over several months that led to his resignation. Gerald Ford said nothing. When things were the darkest for President Richard Nixon, Vice President Gerald Ford said nothing. And when Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, Vice President Ford said, our long national

nightmare is over. Tonight JD Vance is silent.

Tonight JD Vance is Gerald Ford.

One problem with that rant, well several problems actually, including it is stark raving mad, but far from saying nothing, Vice President JD Vance has been speaking and he has been doing interviews daily. As he noted himself, I did two media interviews literally today. Well done, Lawrence, you absolute clown show. Now let's go to CNN and hear from Marjorie Taylor Green,

who seems to be a changed woman since she appeared on The View. Maybe they put something in her drink, because this is concerning. What are you doing, MTG?

I'm sorry for taking part in the toxic politics. It's very bad for our country. And it's been something I've thought about a lot, especially since Charlie Kirk was assassinated, is that I'm only responsible for myself and my own words and actions. And I am committed, and I've been working on this a lot lately, to put down the knives

in politics. I really just want to see people be kind to one another.

I don't know what's happening there. What is she doing? She's apologizing on CNN for her rhetoric Really as Matt Walsh noted leftists celebrated Charlie Kirk's murder and then elected an attorney general who openly fantasizes about killing us and our children and now

Republicans are going on CNN to apologize for their toxic rhetoric. What the hell is going on? What the hell indeed? Do better Marjorie. Now here is Bill Maher giving his fellow lefties a quick history lesson in what happens when

you embrace the failed doctrine of socialism.

Here's capitalist South Korea at night from space. Here's socialist North Korea at night from space. Here's socialist North Korea. Yeah. In 1990, Venezuela was wealthier than Poland. But then Poland, finally free of Soviet-style economics, went all-in on capitalism. And now their economy is as big as Japan, and people there have high wages, low inflation, cars, vacations, homes.

Meanwhile, Venezuela traded capitalism for Hugo Chavez's socialism for the 21st century, which turned out to be like socialism in the last century, or any century, a fucking mess.

It turned one of Latin America's richest countries

into one of its poorest. Low wages, high inflation, shortages, outages, eight million people fleeing. If you think New York can somehow reinvent this wheel, you're in for a rude awokening.

Well said Bill Maher, but I think he knows as well as I do that they're not going to listen to him. Now, it's clear that CNN doesn't want to join CBS and ABC in cutting Donald Trump a massive eight-figure check for deliberately defaming him. Watch this disclaimer before a question was asked.

That mentioned the president and we do want to be clear the president Trump did not receive or send any of the messages which largely predated his time as president He's not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing in connection with Epstein or Maxwell

Was very thorough indeed it really wasn't a point asking the question after all that now Let's go back to MSNBC the mental health asylum masquerading as a news network and Jen Psaki was quick to correct herself After a defamatory comment

about the President labelling him a predator. to what we've learned about Epstein and others, there's other predators out there. There are. Welcome back.

Let's talk more about the latest Jeffrey Epstein revelations. Now the real scandal here is not the fake manufactured narratives pushed by the increasingly desperate Democrats who redacted already released information to make it appear as if Donald Trump had spent hours with a mystery Epstein victim. But that victim was known and widely reported on. It was Virginia Dufresne who made it clear repeatedly

that Donald Trump had done nothing wrong. She said that repeatedly. She wrote it in her memoir. And most importantly, she submitted sworn testimony to the court saying just that. But the Democrats redacted her name in the email

to make it appear that this was some new scandal. The real story is a convicted sex offender, Jeffrey Epstein, plotting with the Democrats to get Donald Trump. Yes, the pedophile and staunch Democrat was even feeding questions to a House Democrat

during a 2019 congressional hearing. The other story is discredited author Michael Wolff plotting with Epstein to get Trump. That's what those emails reveal. And why did Jeffrey Epstein hate Donald Trump so much? Well, it's not just because Epstein

was a prolific Democrat donor, but as Michael Wolff himself admitted, Epstein suspected that Trump had reported him to the authorities.

At that point, Epstein's legal problems began. The police began to investigate him over allegations that he was... ..that there were underage women coming to his house. Epstein believed that it was Trump who first informed the police about what was going on at Epstein's house. And from that point on,

they were nothing but bitter enemies.

And this is what he's telling you.

This is one of the instances of what he's telling you.

That- Yes.

Joining me now is Newsweek's Senior Editor-at-Large and Article Three Project Senior Counsel, Josh Hammer. Josh, this is an enormous scandal. The Democrats working with Epstein, a known sex offender, to get Donald Trump.

Yeah, Rita, everything that you need to know about this story is based on the relevant timeline, which is that Democrats had some mild success in the off-off-year elections about two weeks ago at this point in New York City, New Jersey, and Virginia, and then inexplicably, but on the other hand,

I guess entirely predictably, they caved on the shutdown fight. Like, they totally caved. I mean, Chuck Schumer epically capitulated there. It is the irony of all ironies. He was fighting this shutdown fight to try to force stall an AOC primary challenge in his New York Senate race in three years.

Nonetheless, it's all angry at him. So in order to try to get the momentum back in their favor, in order to try to divert attention from the victorious Republicans and to try to bring the spotlight back to how Democrats are allegedly doing something,

fill in the blank there, mysteriously these 20,000 emails magically appear. Look, Rita, my humble opinion is that the Epstein story ranks probably somewhere between the 40th and 50th most important story to the American people. I think the fact that Democrats are resorting to this frankly reeks of desperation. It's not just hypocrisy and desperation though. It is frankly just astounding that anyone would take them at their word. To be clear, there were horrific, horrific, detestable, loathsome, some of the worst crimes

that you can even imagine occurred in this horrific, horrific case roughly two decades or so, give or take. Everyone wants justice for the victims. But it's hard to take these same Democrats seriously, Rita, when we know that there was one particular president who was much, much closer to Jeffrey Epstein than Donald Trump, who by the way, kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago

as White House Press Secretary Caroline Levin was quick to note this past week. And that Democrat president was very, very chummy with Jeffrey Epstein. The noted Democrat donor was Bill Clinton. Huh, funny you should ask.

I don't see Ro Khanna or any of these other House Democratic leaders, Hakim Jeffries, none of them are talking about Bill Clinton's various trips on the so-called Lolita Express, Jeffrey Epstein's private plane. Why is that? I think the American people see through this, Rita.

They see this as a nakedly political stunt there. Donald Trump, yes, he knew Jeffrey Epstein. Guess what? So did a lot of people. A lot of very powerful, very prominent people knew Jeffrey Epstein, the fact that he was corresponding with him frankly means absolutely nothing whatsoever

in my judgment there. This is a pure political stunt. The American people are gonna see right through it, I think.

Well, just finally on the Democrats' links with Jeffrey Epstein, the New York Post has reported that Epstein was feeding questions to Stacey Plaskett during a 2019 congressional hearing, giving her real-time help on how to damage President Donald Trump.

And there are also reports that Epstein was in meetings with Obama White House counsel, Catherine Rumler. Tell me about that connection. What's that about?

Well, it's actually potentially even worse than that. So there was one of the, look, there are 20,000 emails. So there's a lot that comes up there, but there was actually a potentially even more interesting email than this that I saw involving Barack Obama, and that's why I thought of it.

And this email has to do, I'm trying to remember which election cycle it was. I think it was the 2016 election cycle. And there was an email from Epstein talking about how Barack, now he misspelled it, there were two R's, not one.

So it was misspelled in the email, but there was an email from Jeffrey Epstein talking about how Barack is coming over for dinner tonight. And if you actually look on the timestamp, I think this was in late October, November, it was around the precipice of the 2016 election, if memory serves, Barack Obama was on the campaign trail campaigning for then candidate Hillary Clinton. Well guess where he was at that time at the same time that Jeffrey Epstein sent that email. Oh yeah, he was in South Florida.

He was campaigning in South Florida at the same time that Jeffrey Epstein was talking about having someone named Barack over to his house for dinner in Palm Beach. Hmm. I wonder who that could be, right? So I mean, Bill Clinton is one thing. We've known about these Bill Clinton ties to Jeffrey Epstein for years, but I think that the curious onlooker might, if the curious onlooker here is not hypocritical,

unlike Ahim Jeffries and Ro Khanna, if the curious onlooker is actually intellectually honest, I think one might be inclined to ask, hmm, what did Barack Obama know and when did Barack Obama know?

Of course, it could be an entirely different Barack with two Rs, so we'll wait and see. Now, Donald Trump has said he will be pursuing legal action against the BBC after they deceptively edited his January 6th speech. Trump has already secured multiple eight-figure settlements over the past year from media outlets,

from ABC, American ABC and CBS, as well as major social media platforms, Josh. X, Meta, which has Facebook and Instagram and also YouTube. How do you see this latest clash progressing? I think the UK's defamation laws are far harsher than what's in place in the US. Could he be looking at another massive payout here?

Yeah, you took the words out of my mouth. The, in the UK defamation law is extremely, extremely strict. Actually Rita, I know this very much firsthand because during some of the riots in the UK just over a year ago,

there was a horrific murder of young English children at a dance studio from a Rwanda, if memory serves there. And there were all these riots and counter-riots there. And I made a somewhat anodyne tweet about two-tier Keir Starmer. And a friend of mine who was a British lawyer

over in London messaged me on WhatsApp. He said, Josh, you probably should take that tweet down. And I was like, what are you talking about? I mean, like, this is America, I have free speech. And he was like, actually under British law, that's probably defamatory. So, for the record, I did not delete the tweet. I did not capitulate to Britain's

utterly Orwellian defamation system. But to your point, yeah, defamation is a lot easier in the UK, certainly than in the United States, where we have a slightly higher threshold, especially for so-called public figures. with BBC could be in a world of hurt here. Now having said that, there are any number of left-wing judges in the British judiciary, many of whom are probably deeply antagonistic to Donald Trump.

Probably many of them frankly just utterly hate the guy. It's not that dissimilar, frankly, from a lot of our own American judges who invariably suffer in these lower court random judgeships in Hawaii and New Hampshire. When not there, they oftentimes suffer from Trump derangement syndrome. I presume it's probably the same across the pond over in the UK as well. So I would caution against necessarily saying that this is a slam dunk case,

but given Donald Trump's track record in successfully suing for defamation in various other media outlets, as you correctly note, and given the fact that defamation law is such a lower bar when it comes to being the plaintiff in British law, I don't know, Rita.

I happen to like his changes. I definitely would not want to be in the BBC's legal position right now, that's for sure.

Well, he's already secured these five, eight-figure settlements. And are the proceeds of those settlements going towards the ballroom? Is that accurate? Because this BBC one could pay for the wholeroom, is that accurate? Because this BBC one could pay

for the whole thing possibly.

Yeah, so the judgments go to different things. So one of them I think was the ABC settlement actually is going to help construct the Trump presidential library actually after Donald Trump's presidency, which is-

Oh, library.

It's just so thoroughly delectable, isn't it? That ABC, which did about as much as any other network to try to throw the 2024 election to Kamala Harris with their horrific debate performances and whatnot there. And now they're trying, now they're going to subsidize

the Trump Presidential Library. So on the one hand, it was that. I do think I heard that one of these judgments might be subsidizing the people's ballroom there in the East Wing of the White House there but it depends on the judgment but it's it's frankly from an American taxpayer perspective Rita I just love it because these these media outlets are frankly the enemy of the

people and they should be made to pay as such. I think there's not much sympathy

for these media outlets at all or the social media outlets. Now I want to ask about this tariff revenue bonus that President Trump is committed to sending to Americans? Josh, a $2,000 dividend check to be distributed from tariff revenue sometime next year, we're told, perhaps before the midterms. Do you see this happening?

Because there's a lot of doubts about whether these $2,000 checks can be sent.

If I had to guess, I would guess probably not, to be honest with you. This would probably require an act of Congress. I think this would be very legally dicey to try to do via executive order I think the even more compelling reason why I would throw some skepticism as to whether or not this this will happen is because based on what the American people tell pollsters including those off off your

elections two weeks ago in New York City New Jersey Virginia read out the the issues that they still care most about are pertain to inflation, cost of living, affordability, things like that. And if there's one thing that we know from Joe Biden spending bonanza and the various checks in the mail during COVID, it's that these things over the course of a year or two, three years at the most, can tend to exacerbate inflationary fears. And if this administration is sympathetic to listening to the American people when it comes to their cost of living concerns there.

This is the kind of thing that might sound good in theory. I mean, who doesn't want to receive a $2,000 check in the mail? I mean, heck, sign me up. That sounds great. But I, unfortunately, there is a downside to that when you look at it from a more macro extrapolated perspective there, and that is potentially exacerbating inflation.

So for all these reasons, I am skeptical, but this is Donald Trump's populist mentality, right? I mean, he sees revenue coming in for the tariffs. He wants to share the wealth with the people. These are my big, beautiful tariffs there. I wanna see the people who are proud of this tariff, but proud of rebuilding industry, et cetera, et cetera,

et cetera. So I totally understand where he's coming from from his mentality there, but from both a separation of powers perspective, I don't think Congress would get behind it, and then also on the inflation fears, I'm a little sceptical as well.

Well, I'm not so sure about that. I'm not doubting your judgment that perhaps this can't be done and the process it has to go through, but I reckon people would be absolutely overjoyed about getting a $2,000 check and they're not going to worry too much about how inflationary it may be down the track. I think you are underestimating how much people love free things and $2,000, and particularly because it's coming essentially from foreign nations.

If it is actually coming from tariff revenue, The symbolism there, I think, is pretty good. Now, before you go, there's already trouble among New York City Mayor-elect Zoran Mamdani's transition team with Hassan Shodhari, who is reportedly the political director for the transition committee. It's been revealed he's been posting hate against Jews

and Israel and even questioning gay rights. Now these social media posts are from around 10 years ago but they're pretty ugly. He used the word Jew as a slur. He praised former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who infamously said Israel is a cancer which will be eliminated soon. I think we're seeing now this conflict coming to fruition between Mamdani's

very woke supporter base and some of the Islamist supporter base.

Yeah Rita I mean this has to be the least surprising political development of my entire lifetime right? I mean that Zohreh Mamdani, someone who struggled to condemn Hamas, someone who struggled to condemn the inherently genocidal phrase of from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free. Someone who was accusing Israel of genocide before the tanks even started rolling into Gaza, like literally on like October 8th or October 9th, 2023, something absolutely crazy like that. I mean, obviously he's gonna surround himself

with people who think and talk like this. This is totally unsurprising. I think the more interesting thing to me is as the New York Post reported in the headline that we just saw, this guy was not just bashing Jews.

He was also bashing gay rights. That is interesting, right? Because that is one of the major planks of the current American left when it comes to LGBT, very much including transgenderism. But this actually gets to a broader point, Ria, that I've been making for many years now,

which is that this whole absurd, woke, intersectional identity politics coalition, this notion of a coalition of aggrieved interests, as I call it there, it's inherently self-contradictory. If you're gonna have someone who is sympathetic to radical Islam and Islamism or Sharia law, you're by definition not gonna have someone

who is sympathetic to feminism or LGBT rights there. Think about Linda Sarsour. I mean, she was the head of the Women's March back in 2017, the very early days of Trump administration. She also was a Sharia law apologist. I mean, square that circle for me. With the same thing with this guy, the Mamdani advisor. I mean, square this circle for me,

where you're calling yourself a quote unquote, progressive champion. It literally just does not add up and it all kind of underscores the intellectual dissonance and frankly, just the intellectual vapidity and stupidity that is the modern American left.

And Linda Sarsour is on the scene. I thought she had disappeared, but it seems like she's been working behind the scenes helping Zoran Mamdani and others get elected. So yeah, she's still a force to be reckoned with, unfortunately, for America. Joining me now is celebrity and royal commentator,

Kinsey Schofield. Kinsey, let's start with Ariana Grande. She has copped a little bit of criticism for failing to use Sydney Sweeney's name during a recent interview. Grande pulled out a photograph of Sweeney

during the interview and showed it to her co-star, Bowen Yang, and asked, was I better than this woman? This woman, Kinsey, why couldn't she say her name?

I mean, I think that this is fair criticism. Calling someone that woman or this woman is a snub because it strips them of their name, creates distance and signals that you don't respect them. It tells the audience that you do not see this person as worthy of acknowledgement.

This is supposed to be a silly, fun segment, but it isn't a great look for Ariana, who wouldn't tolerate that type of disrespect towards someone she cared about, like her Wicked co-star, who she practically dry humps in every interview.

So I do think it's shocking and strange.

Oh, you and I have to discuss in depth their antics because they are getting more ridiculous, more weird. The dynamic is just so off. I don't know what's happening. It seems very fake, but also, I don't know, you're uncomfortable watching it.

The only good thing about it is that it inspires so many parodies, so many funny parodies out there trying to copy what they're doing. Now, there was a piece in the Daily Mail last week, which questioned whether Sydney Sweeney has become too toxic for Hollywood.

Tell me about this. Is this some sort of new McCarthyism? Well, I guess it's not that new that conservatives have been black banned, blacklisted in Hollywood for some years now, but could she be considered too toxic

just for doing a jeans commercial that lefties didn't like?

Well, thank you for bringing up this article. What a stupid article. It was in reference to a few box office flops for Sydney this year. I mean, she's got seven upcoming projects, according to IMDb. In the last 24 months,

she's released at least six films. She's generating a lot of content between commercial opportunities, television and film. And statistically, not everything is going to appeal to audiences. I like her, but I'm not going to watch a movie where she plays a boxer. I mean, that just doesn't interest me. But the Daily Mail suggesting that criticism

from a photographer friend of Harry and Meghan Markle somehow signifies the decline of Sydney Sweeney is a major stretch. Her phone hasn't stopped ringing because she's a registered Republican. In fact, she's creating an incredibly lucrative brand.

My only concern is that I think that there might be an over saturation. I mean, Sydney girl, it's okay to say no sometimes, but if you go to the malls here, she's on every kiosk promoting every product. You know, she's just kind of everywhere.

But otherwise, I mean, I think that Sydney has a great future ahead of her.

I think you're gonna see a few more actresses registering as Republicans, if that's the outcome. That seems to be working beautifully for her. Now, Meghan Markle has faced backlash for her as ever Christmas collection promo. It's been described as beige and depressing.

That's a bit harsh, Kinsey, no?

Is it harsh, Rita? I mean, so you're right. Saturday, she posted this video of herself assembling gifts while hard-selling her as-ever holiday range, which includes a $64 candle and a mundane mold spice kit.

The visuals, you just saw them. They were dark and miserable. Brown stockings, are those the literal socks from her feet that she says she answers the door and when she's barefoot to not intimidate her guests. You know the guests that she's laid 8 mugs out the night before to make her to do list shorter. Megan Markle and

netflix for that matter continue desperately to put it position this woman in a role she is not qualified for and I can't wait to talk to you on December after December 3rd we're going to dissect her joyless and family list holiday special on netflix and it's going to be a blast.

I can't wait to go through that we're going to have some fun $64 candle $64 us that's about a $100 Australian for a candle and that's a very accessible. That's for most people during a cost of living crisis. Now, to rumors of a potential visit from Harry and Meghan to Australia. What can you tell us about this, Kinsey?

So this, Harry and Meghan have been associating with a celebrity psychic. I know nothing will shock you less that Harry and Meghan have become friendly with a celebrity psychic, and she posted a less that Harry and Meghan have become friendly with a celebrity psychic and She posted a message from Harry and Meghan

She blurs out some of the message so we don't know what event they specifically spent time at but they thank her for her appearance at this event and they say that they Are looking forward to visiting Australia sometime in the near future. Rita, a day late and a dollar short, I just talked to Tom Bauer about this because he's got a new book coming out in March that's going to be after, this is like, you know, the sequel to Revenge. Revenge was amazing.

And in Revenge, he talks about that 2018 trip to Australia and how that's where Megan really got that bug that she was eclipsing William and Catherine, the Prince and Princess of Wales. And she was so popular that she could make her own rules, promises and demands. And that really starts Megxit right there.

And I said to Tom Bauer, why did she not nurture this relationship with Australia more? Why has she seemingly abandoned Australia? This is a few weeks ago. And he said, because she wanted Hollywood so

Australia knows better her polling has declined significantly there. I don't think they get the welcome that they would want.

Now I reckon yes when they came out because again I was one of the few people who could see through I don't have not everybody saw through her because it was so obvious that it was an act, but there was adulation at the time, sort of the treatment she was getting in the UK initially until they figured out who she was.

But I don't think it's going to be that warm this time around. I don't think the, I think we were quicker than the Yanks, certainly, to figure her out. I think, yeah, she's not going to be the Queen of Australia anytime soon. Now, comedian Jeff Dye is joining the growing wave of entertainers who are leaving Los Angeles.

He was on Joe Rogan's podcast where he expressed concern about the direction California was taking

under the leadership of Gavin Newsom. I could be guilty of being a victim of like what I'm absorbing in my algorithm but like Gavin Newsom scares the s*** out of me and I don't want to be a part of it.

Yeah he wants to run the whole country too. It's wild. Pretty wild.

Kinsey, I'm a fan of his but I can't understand why it's taken so long. California has been on a bad path for some time now.

Rita, I promise you I'm trying to get out of here. I promise, I promise. I have I have plans, okay? But this is interesting because in the past Jeff told Tomi Lahren that he would stay in California because he just loved and believed in it. So this change of heart is newsworthy.

But those observations about Newsom, ever since Gavin adopted this very aggressive and desperate, inauthentic attempt at copying the Donald Trump political playbook, he's looked completely unstable to the point of frightening. Like what is he doing with his hands all the time?

And is he still-

They're always moving in very odd ways when you talk. Like I talk with my hands a lot, but not like that. It's just bizarre. And the whole online persona where he's trying to out Trump Trump, it's not working, Gavin Gavin go back to whatever it was

You were doing which wasn't working either, but at least you weren't embarrassing yourself Before you go Michelle Obama has continued her book tour and she sat down with Tracy Ellis Ross She claimed that black women are trapped by the pressure to keep their hair straight. Have a listen

Let me explain something to white people are trapped by the pressure to keep their hair straight. Have a listen.

Let me explain something to white people. Our hair comes out of our head naturally in a curly pattern. So when we're straightening it to follow your beauty standards, we are trapped by the straightness.

That's why so many of us can't swim and we run away from the water. People won't go to the gym because we're trying to keep our hair straight for y'all.

Kinsey, in 10 seconds, sum up what's happening. What is this misery to us she's doing? It's just incessant whining.

In 10 seconds, I would tell you white people have curly hair too. And I would say this is mean-spirited and a racist conversation. And what evil white woman made her straighten her hair that day? You know, I just find this type of venomous conversation unproductive. And she had very straight hair as she was complaining about it. And she had very straight hair as she was complaining about it.

Kinsey Schofield, thank you so much for your time.