President Joe Biden issued a sweeping pardon on Sunday, absolving his embattled son Hunter for all federal crimes — not just those with which he’s been charged and convicted — that he may have committed over an 11-year period beginning in 2014. And according to some in legacy media, the blame for that historically unprecedented pardon lies at the feet of President-elect Donald Trump. CNN contributor S.E. Cupp appeared to acknowledge that a sitting president pardoning his own child was a low point, but immediately argued that the pardon could be traced back to Trump because his existence in the American political landscape had “lowered the bar” for everyone involved, regardless of party. “It doesn’t get said enough, but Trump’s enduring legacy will be convincing BOTH parties to lower the bar, and that possessing moral authority on anything is no longer a currency that matters,” she said. It doesn’t get said enough, but Trump’s enduring legacy will be convincing BOTH parties to lower the bar, and that possessing moral authority on anything is no longer a currency that matters. https://t.co/f9hVwwIdEc — S.E. Cupp (@secupp) December 2, 2024 Cupp was responding to Charlie Sykes, who said, “Smart person texts me: ‘Joe Biden has just removed the issue of pardons from the political arena for the next four years and Trump probably once again can’t believe his own dumb f***ing luck at this point.’ Sadly, I think he’s right.” Smart person texts me: “Joe Biden has just removed the issue of pardons from the political arena for the next four years and Trump probably once again can’t believe his own dumb fucking luck at this point” Sadly, I think he’s right. — Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) December 2, 2024 CNN contributor Bakari Sellers cheered the pardon in an X post, suggesting that if Biden had not issued the pardon, President-elect Trump would have done so if only to use the move for his own political gain. Trump had previously said that he would leave the door open to pardon Hunter once he took office in January. CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE “Thank God. Pardon Hunter. Trump plays by no rules. Abuses the law. He would’ve pardoned Hunter and called you a coward for not doing it,” Sellers posted. Thank God. Pardon Hunter. Trump plays by no rules. Abuses the law. He would’ve pardoned Hunter and called you a coward for not doing it. — Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) December 2, 2024 On ABC’s “The View,” cohosts Sunny Hostin and Whoopi Goldberg both argued that Trump made the Hunter pardon necessary simply by winning the 2024 presidential election — and claimed that “Biden had no intentions of pardoning” his son until that happened. Whoopi RAGES at people upset about Joe pardoning Hunter:"He's the president, the sitting president, and he can do whatever he wants to… I can't believe this is what's freaking people out! …What's good for the goose is good for the gander. We're moving on." pic.twitter.com/JkequKrwLH — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) December 2, 2024 On CNN, Republican commentator Scott Jennings pushed back on claims from some critics who said that Biden pardoning Hunter was no different than Trump pardoning some of his key allies on his way out of office in 2020. “Listen, you guys can spend all day long trying to spin this, that this is Donald Trump’s fault that this is somehow caused by Donald Trump. ‘Oh, he’s appointing the wrong people.’ ‘Oh, he did it. Oh —'” Jennings said. “This is the worst possible thing a President could possibly do to his party and to the country. To sit for a year and say, ‘I will not do this. I will not do this. The rule of law is sacred. We have to respect the justice system, juries. We have to respect juries. We have to respect the guardrails and the norms of our democracy,'” he continued. “These people are liars. ‘Inflation is transitory.’ ‘Afghanistan is a success.’ ‘The border is secure.’ ‘Robert Hur is a liar.’ ‘The videos are cheap fakes.’ ‘Biden has a cold.’ ‘He’ll never drop out.’ ‘Oh, I’ll never pardon Hunter.'” “It’s all a lie. It is all a grift. Every American except the most partisan, brain-rotted people are going to be outraged by this today. He is going to leave off — you think 38, 39% job approval is bad? Just you wait. Just you wait. He’s disgraced — disgraced today. Outrageous,” he said. CNN's @ScottJenningsKy with the mic drop to Karen Finney: "Stand up for yourself. You have to defend this. He's leaving office. You don't have to defend it. You don't have to die on this hill. You can say this is wrong because everybody knows that it is. It's wrong. Are you fine… pic.twitter.com/PmDKHoNCCP — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 2, 2024  

Megyn Kelly blew up on President Joe Biden after he pardoned his son Hunter Biden, and said she has no sympathy for a “spoiled presidential kid” who just got a pass for all he’s done under the excuse of being an addict. During “The Megyn Kelly Show” podcast on Monday, the host reacted to the news that Biden had pardoned his son for any federal crimes Hunter “committed or may have committed” over the span of 11 years. “President Biden did something he and his media allies have promised over and over and over again that he would not do,” Kelly said. “This guy is an abject liar. He has the nerve to while he’s telling yet another lie, which is that he doesn’t lie, to keep lying at every turn, he just lies.” “He’s trying to make a victim out of him [Hunter], and as opposed to like, if you guys lied and said that your payments on strippers and hookers were tax write-offs, like you wouldn’t be prosecuted,” she added. “It was just poor Hunter who had to deal with that, and it was really just his addiction, like, if usually addicts just get passed, it’s only poor Hunter who didn’t.” The host referenced Biden’s “infuriating” statement announcing the pardon, in which he claimed, “Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong.” “So f**k you, Joe Biden, and your sob story about your rich, spoiled presidential kid Hunter Biden and how he’s been singled out,” Kelly said. “Because I know I speak for millions of people who have an addict in their family, who did something they’re not proud of, who could never get out from under it. We have no sympathy for you, Hunter Biden, and even less, for you, Joe Biden, because you enabled all of it.” CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE The host also related Biden’s treatment of his son to what her own family went through with addiction after her late sister Suzanne Crossley got “swept up into the Opioid crisis” and died in 2022. “So she started taking this drug, and sure enough, she got addicted … her life went to hell,” the host said. “And my poor sister’s life got completely blown up by this thing, by this addiction, to the point where she ultimately … found herself in the throes of the criminal law … And you know what she did? She had to handle it.” “She had to get a public defender. She had to handle the penalty. She didn’t go to jail or anything like that, but it remained a mark on her record forever,” she added. “And you know what that does to a person? You can’t get a job. You cannot get a damn job because it’s on there, and no one gives a damn that you were addicted,” Kelly continued. “No one cares about that back story I just gave to you.” Related: ‘They Will Rue The Day’: Megyn Kelly Says Country ‘Disgraced’ With Trump Guilty Verdict

Troopers with the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) apprehended a man who allegedly helped smuggle a 5-year-old girl across the Rio Grande River and into the United States near Del Rio on Friday. The Texas DPS said that one trooper stopped a pickup truck after learning that a man had been seen by border surveillance technology taking the young child across the border and into the United States. Texas DPS Spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez stated that the smuggler transported the young girl into the vehicle of a different human smuggler who he was collaborating with before being driven to a hotel. Texas DPS monitored the vehicle before conducting a traffic stop, where the law enforcement agents found the girl and arrested the alleged smuggler, Roman Ibarra Rojo, who was charged with smuggling a person younger than 18 years old. Rojo had previously been arrested for human smuggling in 2022, Olivarez stated. Texas DPS also stated that Rojo admitted that he had agreed to smuggle the girl across the border in exchange for $1,000. Also present was the mother of the young girl, Dolores Lopez, who Texas DPS says is originally from Mexico and is a temporary resident of North Carolina. Lopez, Texas DPS says, confessed to finding and hiring a smuggling organization to bring her daughter to the United States in exchange for $8,000. Texas DPS referred Lopez and her daughter to Border Patrol and recommended that the mother be charged with endangering her child. The district attorney will now have the option to pursue charges against Lopez. CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE The case comes as the United States has endured an unprecedented illegal immigration crisis under the Biden-Harris administration, with over 10 million people crossing the border in less than four years. Immigration was one of the top issues in the presidential election, and President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to secure the southern border and initiate the largest mass deportation effort in American history.

Colorado Springs Mayor Yemi Mobolade is facing calls from local politicians to explain his communications with a supporter who was indicted for faking a hate crime to boost the now-mayor’s candidacy. Mobolade last week claimed that he was the “victim of a hate crime” even after Derrick Bernard, a black man who has since been convicted of an unrelated murder, was indicted for scrawling the n-word on a Mobolade campaign sign and lighting a cross on fire in April 2023. The election-eve hoax was intended to gin up sympathy for Mobolade, who is black, in his race against a white Republican. Mobolade was soon after elected in the city, a traditional Republican stronghold. The indictment says that Bernard was in communication with Mobolade, including him letting him know that there was a “plot amidst” beforehand, messaging him the day of the hoax to say that he guaranteed that he would win, and holding a five-minute phone call days after the incident. The Daily Wire reported on November 21 that an FBI official said that the bureau referred the mayor for criminal prosecution for lying after he denied communicating with Bernard in two separate interviews. The Department of Justice refused to prosecute him, citing racial and political considerations, and instead called him in for a third interview, where his story changed to “I don’t recall,” the official said. In a statement to the Colorado Springs Gazette, Mobolade disparaged The Daily Wire without specifically denying the report’s accuracy. “My family and I are victims of a hate crime, allegedly committed by three suspects against our city. I had no knowledge, warning, or involvement in this reprehensible act. It is unfortunately not a new trend that politically motivated websites will weigh in with no regard for accuracy or truth, and interest only in sensationalism and scandal. I fully cooperated in the investigation, and it is important that the judicial process is followed to allow for a successful prosecution that brings justice for our community,” he said. CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE Longinos Gonzalez Jr., who ran in the race for mayor and serves as a commissioner on the governing board of El Paso County, told the Gazette that it was an “unacceptable response,” because it is “still confusing as it relates to whether he did or did not lie to the FBI.” City Councilman Dave Donelson pressed for answers last week at a city council meeting. “I would ask the mayor to come forward and answer questions about whether or not he lied to the FBI, which is what’s alleged in that report: that he met with them twice, said he had no contact with those individuals, however in the indictment it’s clear that he did have contact.” Did the Mayor of Colorado Springs Yemi Mobolade collude with three activists to fake a hate crime to win an election? Why don’t we have his text messages if the 3 activists have been indicted by the Department of Justice? Did the Mayor lie to the FBI? Video from Springs… pic.twitter.com/xJ87NCK4Vq — Jeff Hunt (@jeffhunt) November 26, 2024 The mayor wasn’t present, but Ryan Trujillo, his deputy chief of staff, said “We’re certainly aware and disappointed by the unfounded and unsourced allegations by the Daily Wire article. We’re mindful and respectful that this is an ongoing investigation, so we do not anticipate any further comments to be respectful of that investigation for the defendants, none of which Mayor Yemi are included.” Donelson replied: “What I’m asking for is not to comment on the charges made against those three individuals, but to simply state whether he was interviewed by the FBI twice and denied contact with those individuals. That’s a separate thing.” Donelson told the Gazette, “How could it compromise the investigation to say, ‘I did not lie to the FBI in those two interviews?’” On social media, he noted that the Gazette did not print the most remarkable part of Mobolade’s statement, writing: “I still don’t know if [Mobolade] LIED to the FBI – but I do know that he LIED in the statement he made to the [Gazette] yesterday. First sentence of the statement: ‘My family and I are victims of a hate crime, allegedly committed by three suspects against our city.’” George Brauchler, who was elected as prosecutor for another district in Colorado in November, lambasted Mobolade in an op-ed in the Gazette, saying “lying to the FBI (or any federal agency) is a serious crime. A go-to-prison crime…. for which many before him have been prosecuted and incarcerated.” He said Mobolade’s attempt to sow doubt on the reporting, without actually going on the record to contradict it, only fuel suspicion “We prosecutors look to see if the conduct of the witnesses and the guilty match up to our expectations of what an innocent person would do. Here, they do not,” he said. He faulted the Biden DOJ and the local media, and said the crime of lying to federal agents has a five-year statute of limitations, meaning the DOJ under the Donald Trump administration could still charge him. “Mobolade does not have to wait. He can and should tell us the truth. All of it,” he said. On the day he won election, Bernard messaged Mobolade to take credit for the win, and messaged a co-conspirator that he anticipated “favors” in return, encouraging her to pick out a city job. The FBI source also told The Daily Wire that Mobolade personally asked the DOJ to issue a press release proclaiming his innocence–which the FBI opposed as inappropriate, including because the newly-charged suspects could be pressed for information on the mayor. The DOJ’s press release announcing the indictment falsely stated that Bernard sent a suspicious message to his co-defendants, when it was actually sent to Mobolade. Mobolade’s taxpayer-funded spokeswoman, Vanessa Zink, did not reply when The Daily Wire asked about the FBI official’s allegations before publication of the story that the mayor’s office later disparaged. On Monday, The Daily Wire asked her for yes-or-no answers to the following questions: -Does he deny being interviewed by the FBI three times about the Derrick Bernard/hate crime investigation? -Does he dispute that he denied the existence of certain communications between himself and Derrick Bernard in the first two interviews? -Does he deny contacting the USAO about a press release on the topic? She did not reply. Related: Mayor Lied In Hate Crime Hoax Probe But DOJ Refused To Charge Him, FBI Official Says

'Stupid step'

'DOJ’s investigation involves EcoHealth’s role'

'New ideas and fresh forces are needed to plan the company's future'

'You took him at his word'

'we’re just operating so thin'

'The McRib is more than a sandwich – it’s a part of culture, it’s a legend, it’s an event'