Rapid Response 47
@RapidResponse47
REPORTER: "Do you think that NATO countries should shoot down Russian aircraft if they enter their airspace?"
@POTUS: "Yes, I do."
1:34 PM · Sep 23, 2025
·17.1K Views
https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1970542388234874980
Rapid Response 47
@RapidResponse47
.@POTUS meets with President @ZelenskyyUa
: "He's a brave man, and he's putting up one hell of a fight… we have about 30 meetings scheduled today… but this is an important one — and we have great respect for the fight that Ukraine is putting up."
1:33 PM · Sep 23, 2025
·
26.8K
Views
https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1970542160685797478
Be aware of what Trump is not saying.
Nexstar-owned ABC affiliates won’t show Kimmel’s return Tuesday, joining Sinclair in preempting program
Published Tue, Sep 23 202511:03 AM EDT Updated 17 Min Ago1/2
Key Points
• Nexstar Media Group, one of the largest owners of broadcast TV stations, said it would not air the return of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday.
• The company joins Sinclair, which said Monday it didn’t plan to air the late night show, and instead would show other programming.
• Nexstar owns roughly 30 stations affiliated with ABC in markets including Salt Lake City, Nashville and New Orleans. Sinclair owns and operates nearly 40 ABC affiliate stations.
Nexstar Media Group, one of the largest owners of broadcast TV stations, said it would not air the return of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” on Tuesday.The company joins Sinclair, which said Monday it didn’t plan to air the late night show, andinstead would show other programming.
ABC parent Disney announced on Monday it would bring back “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after pausing the show indefinitely last week following comments by host Kimmel that linked the alleged killer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk to President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement.
Nexstar was among the first to respond to Kimmel’s comments.
“We made a decision last week to preempt ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ following what ABC referred to as Mr. Kimmel’s ‘ill-timed and insensitive’ comments at a critical time in our national discourse. We stand by that decision pending assurance that all parties are committed to fostering an environment of respectful, constructive dialogue in the markets we serve,” Nexstar said in a Tuesday statement.
“In the meantime, we note that ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ will be available nationwide on multiple Disney-owned streaming products, while our stations will focus on continuing to produce local news and other programming relevant to their respective markets,” the company said.
Nexstar and Sinclair are among the largest broadcast TV station owners in the U.S. The companies own and operate stations in local markets that are affiliated with major networks including ABC, Fox, NBC and CBS.
Nexstar owns roughly 30 stations affiliated with ABC in markets including Salt Lake City, Nashville and New Orleans. Sinclair owns and operates nearly 40 ABC affiliate stations.
Sinclair last week followed Nexstar in preempting Kimmel’s show. The station owner said late Monday it would still preempt “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” after ABC returned it to broadcast this week.
In a statement, Sinclair said discussions with ABC were “ongoing as we evaluate the show’s potential return.”
A Disney representative on Monday didn’t comment on the discussions with Sinclair and other affiliate station owners. The company didn’t immediately respond to comment on Tuesday.
In its statement on Monday announcing Kimmel’s return, Disney said it “made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country.”
]]Disney CEO Bob Iger and Dana Walden, co-chair of Disney Entertainment, made the decision to return Kimmel to air and alerted the comedian on Monday, CNBC reported==. Local station owners learned on Monday when Disney made the public announcement that Kimmel would return, CNBC reported at the time.
FCC threats
While the stations offer local content, such as live news, they also air national programming affiliated with their network, including live sports, late night TV, national news shows, and primetime series. The station owners license spectrum from the government and the networks are free-to-air — meaning consumers can watch the networks for free with an antenna.
Following Kimmel’s comments last Monday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr suggested licenses were at risk of being revoked as stations and networks are required by law to operate in the “public interest.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/23/kimmel-abc-nexstar-sinclair-fcc.html
2/2
Carr said on CNBC last week that Kimmel’s comments appeared to “directly mislead the American public about…probably one of the most significant political events we’ve had in a long time.”
During Kimmel’s opening monologue last Monday, Kimmel said the “MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”
“In between the finger-pointing there was grieving. On Friday the White House flew the flags at half-staff, which got some criticism, but on a human level you can see how hard the president is taking this,” he continued, teeing up a clip of Trump on the White House lawn in which the president fields a question on Kirk but swiftly pivots to talking about construction.
The FCC didn’t respond to requests for comment this week, however, Carr took to social media platform X to weigh in earlier on Tuesday.
“On Kimmel, the Democrats are engaged in nothing more than Projection and Distortion,” Carr said in his post on Tuesday, adding, “Distortion because Democrats want to blame anything other than Disney and their local TV stations for Kimmel’s suspension. Those businesses decided that, in their view, a suspension made sense. The reporting on this is clear.”
“Notably, this is the first time recently that any local TV stations have pushed back on a national programmer like Disney. And that is a good thing because we want want empowered local TV stations. After all, local TV stations—not the national programmers—have public interest obligations, and they should be making decisions that in their view meets the needs of their local communities,” Carr posted.
Pressure has been mounting on media companies since Trump entered office for second term and Carr took his post as head of the FCC earlier this year.
Public statements denouncing broadcasters, news outlets and specific programming have raised questions about the protection of free speech.
Trump has barred specific reporters and news organizations from pooled press events, and earlier this week the Pentagon issued further restrictions on journalists.
The Trump administration has also filed lawsuits against news outlets including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. ABC News settled a lawsuit last year in which the network agreed to pay $15 million to Trump’s presidential library to settle a dispute with the president. Prior to its merger with Skydance Media, which officially closed in August, Paramount paid $16 million to settle a lawsuit with Trump.
Days after the settlement, the FCC granted Paramount and Skydance approval to merge after more than a year of delays. StephenColbert, last night host for Paramount Skydance-owned CBS, referred to the settlement as “a big fat bribe.” CBS later announced the cancellation of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” citing financial reasons.
Nexstar is currently seeking FCC approval for its proposed $6.2 billion merger with fellow broadcast station owner Tegna. And while it has yet to ink a deal, Sinclair is also exploring merger options for its broadcast stations.
Disney, meanwhile, is seeking regulatory approval for a deal in which the NFL would acquire 10% of the company’s ESPN in exchange for NFL Media assets.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/23/kimmel-abc-nexstar-sinclair-fcc.html
Rapid Response 47
@RapidResponse47
.@POTUS: "The entire globalist concept of asking successful, industrialized nations to inflict pain on themselves and radically disrupt their entire societies MUST be rejected completely and totally — and it must be immediate."
11:02 AM · Sep 23, 2025
93.4K
Views
https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1970503952484520123
Rapid Response 47
@RapidResponse47
.@RealTomHoman: We have 400K+ deportations and ~1.6 million illegals have left on their own since President Trump took office. "We're tripling the size of the workforce. We're adding more detention beds, we're adding more flights… so the numbers are going to explode."
7:46 PM · Sep 22, 2025
· 143K Views
https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1970273534623510825
Foreign Affairs: Sumantra Maitra Sep 23, 2025
Saudi Gets a Nuclear Army: Qatar had a U.S. base, but it still got bombed by Israel. Now local balancers are hedging.
An earthquake of a deal just happened in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia acquired virtually overnight protection beneath the Pakistani nuclear umbrella with the signing of a “strategic defense pact” with Pakistan. The deal also provides cash-strapped Pakistan a respite in what can only be termed a miraculous month for Pak diplomacy. In what is clearly a signal to Israel and the U.S.,the Kingdom flexed by notifying the U.S. after the deal was signed.
The fact that Saudis will have the first "Islamic bomb" at their disposal is nothing new. Bob Woodward’s book War (2024) noted how Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman once told Lindsay Graham,“I don't need uranium to make a bomb, I will just buy one from Pakistan.” It has always been an easy play for both Turkey and the Saudis to reach for hard-up Pakistan’s nukes as a backup.What is newis that so far they relied on the American umbrella, tacitly in Saudi’s case and through NATO and nuclear hosting in Turkey’s.
But Israel’s bombing of Qatar changed that dynamic. Qatar had an American base;the U.S. couldn’t stop Qatar from being bombed by a rabid American protectoratealready mired in conflicts with five neighbours, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Yemen, and Gaza and the West Bank. Now the Gulf monarchy is on the list.
The fact that a U.S. base cannot provide deterrence automaticallypushed Turkey to seek rapprochement with Egypt and the Saudis to seek Pakistani nuclear weapons. The Joint Strategic Defense Agreement is interesting; it is a hint that the Pakistani strategic forces will be used for any contingency and enhance joint deterrence. It also automatically treats an attack on one to be an attack on the other. Unlike NATO, it leaves no room for consultation between the principals and leaves no ambiguity. In case there were any comprehension issues, the subsequentPakistani comments clarified that the pact is a comprehensive agreement that encompasses all military means.
No one expected this to happen. It is common knowledge that the Saudi royalty funded Pakistan’s nuclear program, but making itexplicit is a surest sign that Arabs are looking beyond the Americans, as the Americans have hitched their ride to one of the most aggressive statesin the Middle East seemingly in perpetuity regardless of American public opinion.
Explaining the regional dynamic, the grand doyen of neorealism, Kenneth Waltz, wrote in 2012, “Israel’s regional nuclear monopoly, which has proved remarkably durable for the past four decades,has long fueled instability in the Middle East. In no other region of the world does a lone, unchecked nuclear state exist. It is Israel’s nuclear arsenal, not Iran’s desire for one, that has contributed most to the current crisis. Power, after all, begs to be balanced.”
Waltz had Iran in mind, of course. He added: “But the very acts that have allowed Israel to maintain its nuclear edge in the short term have prolonged an imbalance that is unsustainable in the long term.Israel’s proven ability to strike potential nuclear rivals with impunity has inevitably made its enemies anxious to develop the means to prevent Israel from doing so again.” The new deal brings a whole new angle to regional balancing. Of note, Pakistan’s nuclear-capable Shaheen can reach Tel Aviv in about 12 minutes. Iran has nothing like that. The deterrent factor of this arrangement is therefore hard to understate.
Contrary to popular opinion, this probably has nothing to do with India. Although India’s recent “every terror attack is a war” doctrine will have to undergo some change in response to the deal, it is also possible that Pakistani forces will soon be in a conflict with the Houthis in Yemen.
But, at time of writing, it seems that Egypt has moved past its reservation about Turkish support of the Muslim Brotherhood since 2013. Turkey and Egyptwill now jointly hold naval and air drills in the Eastern Mediterranean, a first in over a decade. Just as Saudi Arabia seals a strategic defense pact with Pakistan, Cairo and Ankara deepen cooperation, laying the groundwork for an Egypt–Turkey regional naval and strategic alliance.
The new Middle East will look very different if and when these arrangements are fully operationalized. It is the U.S. that now risks standing isolated.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/saudi-gets-a-nuclear-army/
Israel never wanted the Abraham Accords, basically that didn’t want the US to have more friends. It’s very clear if the world blows up in Nuclear War, it will be Bibi’s and Israel fault.