RINGSIDE POLITICS – JUNE 11, 2021

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Welcome to another edition of Ringside Politics with Jeff Crouere

Today’s Hot Topics:

1) U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday defended herself from Republican critics who criticized her for making her first international trip to Mexico and Guatemala instead of visiting the U.S. border with Mexico, saying she has visited the border and will do so again.

After meeting with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador in Mexico City, Harris told reporters she had “been to the border before and will go again.”

Harris, who was a U.S. Senator from California starting in 2017 and traveled the country running for president in 2020, did not specify when she last visited the border.

2) Disgraced CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin Thursday made an abrupt and unannounced return to the cable network, and acknowledged masturbating while on a Zoom call with colleagues from The New Yorker last year.

Toobin, 61, who became the butt of jokes by late-night comics after the October incident and was fired a month later by The New Yorker, where he was a staff writer, apologized for his actions in a segment with CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota, who described the incident in which Toobin “was caught masturbating on camera.”

“I’m trying now to say how sorry I am, sincerely. Above all, I am sorry to my wife and to my family, but I’m also sorry to the people on the Zoom call. I’m sorry to my former colleagues at The New Yorker. I’m sorry to my current, fortunately, still colleagues at CNN. And I’m sorry to the people who read my work and watched me on CNN who thought I was a better person than this,” said Toobin, seated next to Camerota at he CNN anchor desk. “I’ve got a lot to rebuild, but I feel very privileged and very lucky that I’m going to be able to try to do that.”

CNN confirmed Toobin’s reinstatement as chief legal analyst but made no further comment. The New Yorker declined comment.

3) First lady Jill Biden on Thursday said President Biden is “over prepared” for his first overseas trip since taking office, ahead of summits and face-to-face meetings in Europe with allies and other world leaders.

The first lady traveled with the president to the United Kingdom on Wednesday, and is set to participate in a number of events.

4) Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) escalated his feud with the federal government’s leading infectious diseases expert on Monday, calling Anthony Fauci a “petty tyrant” for suggesting Americans vaccinated against the coronavirus should not eat or drink indoors.

“Fauci continues to ignore 100 years of vaccine science,” Paul wrote in a tweet Monday morning. “His only real theme is ‘do what I say’ even when it makes no sense.”

Americans who have recovered from or been vaccinated against the coronavirus should “go about your life,” Paul said. “Eat, drink, work, open the schools. Enough with the petty tyrants!”

Fauci, during an appearance on MSNBC on Sunday evening, said it was “still not OK” for people who have been vaccinated to eat or drink at indoor businesses.

Today’s Guests:

1) Ben Bergquam, Real America’s Voice National Correspondent

2) Chris Holton, Vice President of Outreach, Center for Security Policy

3) Donna Carol Voss,  author and commentator