Nation
‘They can go to hell’: Meghan McCain blasts Katie Couric, others for calls to ‘deprogram’ Trump supporters
Meghan McCain blasted Katie Couric and others who have called for the “deprogramming” of Trump supporters by saying Monday on ABC’s “The View” that “they can go to hell.”
McCain, a co-host of the daytime talk show, went after the veteran journalist Couric, who told Bill Maher earlier this month: “I also think some of them are believing the garbage that they are being fed 24/7 on the internet, by their constituents, and they bought into this big lie. And the question is how are we going to really almost deprogram these people who have signed up for the cult of Trump.”
Others in media over the past couple weeks, including one of McCain’s “The View” co-hosts, Sunny Hostin, have called Trump supporters “brainwashed” or in need of “deprogramming.”
“Instead we’re hearing a lot of language from people like Katie Couric that Republicans like me need to be ‘deprogrammed,’ that we’re ‘brainwashed’—that 74 million Americans are basically irredeemable people, that we don’t need to communicate towards or in any way have anything to do with,” McCain said. “I think it’s horribly dangerous for the country and I also think it’s horribly dangerous for Democrats.”
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“If you don’t care about unity, you should care about the politics of this,” McCain continued, “because right now there is a vacuum to pick up the four people—four in ten Republicans who feel very disenfranchised, and if President Biden and Democrats want to have a big tent party and include some of these people, great, and if we’re all just deplorable and need to be reprogrammed as Katie Couric said, then honestly they can go to hell, because I don’t need to be deprogrammed,” McCain said.
“I just have a different perspective on how the government should be run,” she added.
McCain, who is the sole conservative on the show, has been very critical of former President Donald Trump. In the 2020 presidential election, she voted for President Joe Biden, who was a longtime friend of her father, the late Arizona Sen. John McCain (R), whom Trump had attacked for his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @Douglas_P_Braff.
Elections
IRS Whistleblower Receives Retaliation After Speaking Out on Hunter Biden Tax Case
A whistleblower in the Hunter Biden tax investigation, IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley, is facing harsh repercussions from the IRS after revealing alleged misconduct within the agency. Shapley, who gained widespread attention following an interview with investigative journalist Catherine Herridge, claims to be under intense pressure to accept a demotion or resign after publicly disclosing his concerns.
National Review reports on the recent developments, shared by Shapley’s attorney, Tristan Leavitt, reveal that the IRS had apparently been withholding a punitive decision until after Herridge’s interview went viral. “Less than an hour after @C__Herridge posted this story yesterday about the retaliation against the IRS whistleblowers, the IRS sent SSA Shapley this notice telling him he had 15 days to choose whether to be demoted or to resign,” Leavitt tweeted, noting that the agency appeared to have delayed this decision by at least two weeks.
On October 15, the IRS officially informed Shapley of a planned reassignment, notifying him he would be moved from his role as a Supervisory Special Agent in the criminal division to a Senior Analyst position—a demotion. Shapley was given the option to either accept the downgrade or, if he chose not to, request a lower-level special agent role or leave the agency entirely.
In response to the alleged retaliation, Shapley’s attorney sent a formal letter to Congress on Thursday. Addressed to House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and House Ways and Means Committee chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.), Leavitt’s letter highlights a history of punitive treatment Shapley claims to have faced since he first disclosed his findings.
“From the moment USA Weiss received access to SSA Shapley’s protected whistleblower disclosures and contacted IRS leadership, the IRS has treated SSA Shapley differently,” Leavitt wrote in the letter. He also added that “the illegal reprisal increased after SSA Shapley made clear he intended to blow the whistle to Congress and others. And it continues to this day, when the IRS knows it can retaliate against SSA Shapley simply by waiting out the clock for him to be forced into the position of resigning or being demoted.”
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is currently investigating the allegations of retaliation, not only against Shapley but also against another IRS whistleblower, Joseph Ziegler, who had similarly come forward regarding the Hunter Biden case. Leavitt has requested that the OSC intervene to prevent what he calls an apparent case of retaliation and has urged congressional Republicans to ask for a briefing on the progress of the OSC’s 17-month-long investigation.
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