The media has gone off the rails this week.
We start our Throwdown with Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia student kidnapped by Trump’s ICE and imprisoned for over 100 days. After finally being released, he isn’t backing down: he’s taking yet another brave risk to make his voice heard in an effort to fight against Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
But how does CNN, supposedly the adversarial network to Trump’s draconian rule, treat Khalil? With racism, aggression, and as always, the big question: “But do you condemn Hamas?”
“It's disingenuous,” Khalil responds in his ever-diplomatic way, “to ask about condemning Hamas while Palestinians are the ones being starved now by Israel. You’re not condemning October 6, where 260 Palestinians were killed by Israel before October 7. So I hate the selective outrage of condemnation because this wouldn't lead to a constructive conversation.”
Aaron adds on: “There were atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7, and they can ask him to condemn those, but they didn't. They asked him in a very general, broad statement: Do you condemn Hamas as a broad entity.
“What does that mean? Do you have to condemn Hamas for running the Gaza Health Ministry? And are you supposed to condemn people for exercising their right to resist? If you want to say: Do you condemn the killing of innocent civilians? That's a fair question. But then, as he pointed out, you have to apply that to Israel as well, which killed infinitely more innocent civilians.”
We then turn to Hunter Biden, who in an interview this week unleashed a tirade against George Clooney, Pod Save America, David Axelrod, and other Dems who coast off their names and famous relationships. He had a lot to say: