Dan is an assistant managing editor at Raw Story based in Colorado, producing and editing breaking political news.
Dan previously worked as a news associate at The Associated Press in Philadelphia, and later as local editor, breaking news editor and eventually manager at Patch, overseeing the company’s breaking news and Long Island/Hudson Valley teams.
Dan has covered major breaking stories such as mass shootings and wildfires in California, and overseen teams that covered George Santos and the Gilgo Beach serial killings.
A native of Colorado and the Philadelphia area, Dan graduated with a degree in journalism from Temple University.
President Donald Trump uncorked an attack on David Letterman a day after the legendary late-night comedian delivered blistering criticism of Jimmy Kimmel's abrupt suspension from ABC.
When asked Thursday at The Atlantic Festival 2025 his thoughts on Kimmel being yanked off the air, Letterman replied, “This is misery."
“I feel bad about this,” he said. “We see where this is all going, correct? It’s managed media. And it’s no good. It’s silly. It’s ridiculous. And you can’t go around firing somebody because you’re fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian criminal administration in the Oval Office. That’s just not how this works."
Letterman warned comedians won't be the only ones targeted by the Trump administration.
“In the world of somebody who is an authoritarian, maybe a dictatorship, sooner or later, everyone is going to be touched,” he said.
He then scolded Trump some more, and called it a "premeditated" ouster.
“The institution of the president of the United States ought to be bigger than a guy doing a talk show.”
Kimmel’s show was suspended indefinitely over his remarks after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Kimmel’s monologue accused MAGA supporters of exploiting Kirk’s death for political gain and mocked how Trump publicly grieved the loss.
In classic Trump fashion, the president took to his Truth Social platform to attack Letterman.
"Whatever happened to the very highly overrated David Letterman, whose ratings were never very good, either. He looks like hell, but at least he knew when to quit. LOSER!!!"
Van Jones joined Anderson Cooper on "Anderson Cooper 360" late Friday to praise Kirk's after the two feuded on social media over the killing of Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee who was stabbed to death last month while riding a light rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina.
"The suspect is a Black man, and Charlie Kirk and Van got into a public sparring match online," noted Cooper. "Kirk claimed the murder happened because she was white. Van denounced that as completely unfounded. Kirk then sent out what Van calls a firehose of tweets challenging his argument, which Van says sparked death threats against him."
But it was what happened next that led Jones to praise Kirk, who was shot dead last week. Kirk reached out to Jones in a direct message on X.
"Hey Van, I mean it. I'd love to have you on my show to have a respectful conversation about crime and race. I would be a gentleman, as I know you would be as well. We can disagree about the issues agreeably," Kirk said.
The message was sent Sept. 9 — a day before he was shot and killed. Jones saw the message the following day after the shooting.
"I mean, this is extraordinary. So this was received the day before he was killed?" asked Cooper.
"Yeah. Look, I mean, we were beefing. We were going at it online, on air. And then after he died, after he was murdered, my team called and said, 'Van, he was trying to reach you, man.'" said Jones.
Jones said he was sitting on the message, which called for being "gentlemen together" and disagreeing "agreeably."
"So I'm sitting on this, and I'm watching the whole country talk about civil war, censorship, justifying murder about this guy? This guy is reaching out to his mortal enemy, saying we need to be gentlemen, sit down together and disagree agreeably. And the next day, he's killed," said Jones.
Jones said after thinking it over, he said they'd attend a memorial weekend for Kirk.
"We disagreed — everybody knows we were not friends, ok? At all. But you praise the good when it's time to memorialize somebody. And what he did — nd I didn't even know it — was good. He was not for censorship. He was not for civil war. He was not for violence. He was for dialogue. Open debate and dialogue. Even with me. Even with me," said Jones.
Jones said that while he wouldn't have appeared on Kirk's show, he might've invited Kirk onto Cooper's show, called him and started the process of debate.
"I wanted to beat Charlie Kirk in a debate. I didn’t want somebody to shoot him. That’s how we do it in America," said Jones.
Elliott Williams joined Erin Burnett on her show, "OutFront," to discuss Trump's use of the word “illegal” when talking about the media.
"I think that's really illegal. That's no longer free speech. That's no longer — that's just cheating," Trump told reporters, referring to negative coverage of him despite defeating Vice President Kamala Harris last year.
"I think Brendan Carr doesn't like to see the airwaves be used illegally and incorrectly, and purposely, horribly," he added in a separate clip.
Williams said Trump's "illegal" remarks don't hold up.
"I really think it doesn't. Now, certainly, the president has every right to be bothered by critical coverage he's gotten. But so does every president who's ever served. And quite frankly, every political leader who’s served since the time of Jonathan Swift. We have a long tradition in the Western world of criticizing leaders," Williams said.
Williams then warned Trump may get himself in hot legal waters the more he rambles.
"You know, the more he talks, the more he risks jeopardizing any of these cases, because he's laying, or helping to lay, the groundwork for a lawsuit from Jimmy Kimmel or someone else about the fact that ABC was coerced into acting, or that Nexstar was coerced into acting," said Williams.
"And the more the president suggests that there's some sort of ... action is being taken on account of the views that he's hearing, that starts stepping into the realm of the First Amendment. So really he's making his own bed here, the more he speaks publicly," said Williams.
Patel testified this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday and then before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. He faced a tense grilling on several topics, including the investigation into the files of accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and other internal FBI matters.
A Getty photograph shared on X by independent journalist Aaron Rupar showed what was on Patel's mind during his hearing with House lawmakers.
Max Flugrath, communications director at Fair Fight Action, wrote on X, "These aren't notes – it's a script to follow in hopes of generating clips MAGA can use for social media propaganda."
Kash Patel's notes during his congressional testimony as photographed by Getty: "Good fight with Swalwell" pic.twitter.com/DOZvOxLxJx — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 19, 2025
CNN anchor Jake Tapper expressed astonishment Friday afternoon at President Donald Trump's Oval Office remarks that negative coverage of his administration ought to be "illegal."
Trump made the comment while fielding shouted questions from reporters. One reporter asked him his thoughts on free speech as it relates to the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
"There's been a lot of talk about free speech this week. Do you see a difference between cancel culture and consequence culture?" the reporter asked.
"Your question is a little trick question," he shot back, annoyed by the question.
Trump bemoaned that coverage of him is up to 97% negative despite his win over Vice President Kamala Harris.
"They'll take a great story, and they'll make it bad!" he added. "I think that's really illegal, personally. You can't have free airwaves — you're getting free airwaves from the United States government — and you can't have that and say — someone who just won an election — and I had to go through this during the election. I think it's a miracle that I can win when 97% of the stories on the networks are bad or whatever it may be."
Fellow CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins called Trump's comments "remarkable."
"The president is doubling down on what he told reporters on Air Force One just yesterday about punishment that he believes networks should face over what their late-night hosts say about him, particularly how much negative coverage there is of the president," she said.
Collins said Trump is now "explicitly saying" that employers should face consequences for negative coverage of him.
"He's going further than he did yesterday," Collins noted.
"Yeah, saying that newscasts that are not sufficiently positive are a crime," Tapper said. "Shocking."
Tapper added: "It is stunning to me that people in the conservative media are so shortsighted they don’t see how this is going to impact them when a Democrat wins the White House — and that will happen someday."
A Wyoming senator's remarks about free speech stunned a Capitol Hill reporter for The New York Times on Friday.
Annie Karni joined CNN's "The Arena" with host Kasie Hunt on Friday afternoon to discuss remarks made by Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R), who made an eye-popping statement to Semafor that she no longer feels the First Amendment is the "ultimate right."
"Under normal times, in normal circumstances, I tend to think that the First Amendment should always be sort of the ultimate right. And that there should be almost no checks and balances on it. I don’t feel that way anymore,” Lummis told the outlet on Thursday following the public suspension of late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel.
“I feel like something’s changed culturally. And I think that there needs to be some cognizance that things have changed,” she said. “We just can’t let people call each other those kinds of insane things and then be surprised when politicians get shot and the death threats they are receiving and then trying to get extra money for security."
Karni was taken aback by Lummis's comment.
"That’s stunning. Like she's saying, I don't believe the First Amendment is the end-all be-all. I agree that there kind of is a divide," said Karni.
Karni noted that Attorney General Pam Bondi caught flak online for saying there's "free speech" and "hate speech."
"And she got blowback from conservatives who said, 'Sorry, hate speech is awful, but it's still free speech.' It's not inciting violence. You may not like it, but it's protected," Karni added.
President Donald Trump admitted Friday afternoon he doesn't see eye to his with his own handpicked Health Secretary, but insisted he wanted someone with "opposite views."
The admission came as reporters peppered the president with questions at the White House, including one about Robert F. Kennedy's Department of Health and Human Services.
"Secretary Kennedy's panel on vaccines changed its broad recommendations on COVID-19 vaccines today. Are you comfortable with that change, or would you like to see Americans take vaccines that were developed under your tenure?" a reporter asked.
Trump took a moment to gush about his Operation Warp Speed, which was launched during the pandemic to expedite a vaccine that would save countless lives from the brutal coronavirus.
Calling it one of the "greatest things that any president has ever done in this country," Trump insisted he's "very proud of it."
"I had the vaccine. Here I am, right?" he said.
Reporters pressed him on his stance and Kennedy's efforts to undermine confidence in vaccines.
"Bobby Kennedy seems to be undoing what you did with Operation Warp Speed," a reporter began.
Trump interjected.
"I put him in there because I want to have opposite views. That's ok," he said.
Trump then teased a "big" announcement is coming "soon" on autism, as soon as next week.
"It's out of control, autism. Out of control. And I think we maybe have the reason why," he added.
When pressed again on Kennedy's efforts, Trump repeated that Operation Warp Speed was one of the greatest achievements in American history — "and you can say the world."
President Donald Trump on Friday took issue with a reporter's inquiry in the Oval Office, calling it a "trick question."
As Trump fielded shouted questions from reporters, one reporter asked him about his thoughts on free speech as it relates to the killing of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
"There's been a lot of talk about free speech this week. Do you see a difference between cancel culture and consequence culture?" the reporter asks.
Trump appeared annoyed by the question.
"Your question is a little trick question," he shot back.
"It's not meant to be," the reporter replied.
"I'm a very strong person for free speech," Trump continued, before blasting TV networks for giving him negative coverage. "At the same time, when you have networks that — where I won an election in counties, I guess, its 2,600 to 525 — that's called a landslide times two."
Trump bemoaned that coverage of him is between 94% and 97% negative despite his win over Vice President Kamala Harris.
"They'll take a great story, and they'll make it bad!" he added. "I think that's really illegal, personally. You can't have free airwaves — you're getting free airwaves from the United States government — and you can't have that and say — someone who just won an election — and I had to go through this during the election. I think it's a miracle that I can win when 97% of the stories on the networks are bad or whatever it may be."
A new report left critics aghast Friday as it claimed donors to President Donald Trump's luxurious new White House ballroom may get their names enshrined in the building "forever."
Trump is building the addition, a project described as the most significant renovation of the White House since Harry Truman. The ballroom is planned as part of a 90,000-square-foot expansion of the East Wing, will cover about 25,000 square feet and seat up to 900 guests.
The estimated cost is around $200 million, and Trump has vowed he'd pay for the addition, though it is being funded privately by Trump and donors. CBS News reported Friday that special incentives were under consideration for wealthy elites willing to pony up for Trump's pet project. Among the options: having their names "etched inside the White House forever," or having their names placed on a website. A final decision has not been made.
Predictably, critics were none too happy with the news, with many dubbing it a "pay-to-play" scheme.
Jesse Lee, former senior communications advisor to the National Economic Council under Joe Biden, wrote on X, "Trump not content to have his own private cesspool of pay-to-play corruption at Mar-a-Lago, is turning the White House into Mar-a-Lago North. Next Dem president should bulldoze it."
Jim Swift, senior editor at The Bulwark, joked on X, "Carl's Jr. has an opportunity to do the funniest thing: put a bow on the Idiocracy. #broughttoyoubycarlsjr."
Nick Field, a political and culture writer, questioned on X, "What happens after one of these people is inevitably revealed to be a Jeffrey Epstein-like person?"
Timothy Cama, political reporter at E&E News, joked on X, "What part of the ballroom could be named after NextEra? Wrong answers only."
Chris Wright joined Maria Bartiromo on her show "Mornings with Maria," and was asked what he would tell "Al Gore and the skeptics" about climate change ahead of his appearance at an upcoming New York Times Climate Forward event scheduled for Sept. 24.
Wright blasted Gore's "nonsense" that put the United States in a bad position.
"He started pedalling climate nonsense 20 years ago. The Arctic was going to have no ice anymore 10 years ago," Wright railed. "Well, this year, we had more ice than we had 10 years ago in the Arctic. He just started to peddle this nonsense the world was going to heck."
Wright continued his rant, bemoaning that over $5 trillion has been spent across the globe to fight climate change, including "investment in solar, wind and batteries."
"And everywhere they've had high penetration, more expensive prices. A complete trainwreck! And Al Gore, like most people that peddle nonsense, doesn't recant. He's just doubling down on this stuff," Wright added.
President Donald Trump is expected to sign a new order Friday that will slap a steep fee on a key immigration program that allows U.S. companies to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty jobs that require highly specialized knowledge and the equivalent of a bachelor's degree.
Trump's proclamation would impose a $100,000 fee on H-1B applications, according to Bloomberg and CNN. CNN reporter Kristen Holmes told viewers on Friday that tech companies usually use such workers.
"This is clearly taking a gamble or a bet here that they could afford that $100,000," she said.
Trump has said companies are abusing the system and are restricting their search to foreign workers, leaving Americans out to dry. He's essentially saying companies must "really want this foreign employee to come in and work for your company, because you're going to have to pay this huge amount of money for them," Holmes noted.
Trump also plans to order the Labor Secretary to begin drafting rules to change existing wage levels for the H-1B program, to prevent companies from exploiting the program by undercutting wages that would otherwise be paid to American workers.
Donors to President Donald Trump's lavish new White House ballroom may get their names enshrined in the building "forever," according to a new report.
Trump is building a new ballroom, a project described as the most significant renovation of the White House since Harry Truman. The ballroom is planned as part of a 90,000-square-foot expansion of the East Wing. The ballroom itself will cover about 25,000 square feet and seat up to 900 guests.
Notably, the estimated cost is around $200 million — and is funded privately by Trump and donors. And a new report reveals special incentives are under consideration for wealthy elites willing to pony up to fund the project. That includes having their names "etched inside the White House forever," according to CBS News.
Another possibility: having donor names placed on a website. A final decision has not been made, according to the report.
Sources familiar with the matter told the outlet that multiple firms have promised to donate at least $5 million to the project, with Trump personally talking to business executives about doing so.
The companies that have contributed include some of the biggest names in tech and defense: Google, Lockheed Martin and Palantir, sources told CBS News. Blackstone Group CEO Stephen Schwarzman has also pledged money.
Trump previously said he'd cover the costs.
"I'm paying for it. I'm paying for it," Trump said.
The Senate failed to advance a short-term spending bill on Friday, falling short of the necessary 60 votes required to move forward, inching the country closer to a government shutdown.
A procedural vote on the stopgap spending bill ended in a 44-48 tally, far short of the threshold. Just one Democrat — Sen. John Fetterman (PA) — joined Republicans in support as the party dug in over demands to increase healthcare funding and walk back the GOP's steep Medicaid cuts.
Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (AK) and Rand Paul (KY) voted against the legislation.
The current funding expires at midnight Sept. 30, and the Senate is poised to begin a week-long recess. The proposed stopgap bill would have funded the government through Nov. 21.
An irritated President Donald Trump lashed out Thursday at Fox News polls during an interview with the network.
Trump was interviewed by Martha MacCallum on Fox News' "The Story." The two discussed polling about the economy and concerns about unemployment and inflation. It quickly turned into a critique from Trump over his dissatisfaction with Fox News' polling methods.
"We're gonna have numbers like nobody has ever seen before, including jobs," Trump told MacCallum.
The Fox host pressed him on when.
"When do you think we're gonna feel that? Because we do see polling that doesn't poll well in the economy. Recent Fox polling said 52% said the economy is worse under this administration," she said.
The poll, conducted Sept. 6-9, was among registered voters. Just 30% said the Trump administration made the economy better, and 18% said they felt it was the same.
MacCallum noted the unemployment rate is the highest its been since the middle of the pandemic, and grocery prices have made a "big jump."
"How is that — you're looking forward with these plans that you just talked about. When will people feel that, President Trump?"
Trump began answering that the economy will improve once factories open, and they're currently under construction. But he immediately attacked the right-wing outlet's polling.
"Fox polling, I have to tell you, I've told you before, is the worst polling I've ever had," he railed. "It's always — during the election they had me winning by a little bit, not by a massive amount. Fox polling — I've told Rupert Murdoch, go get yourself a new pollster because he stinks. And this is for years now."
Trump’s favorability among Latinos has also plummeted, according to new polling acquired by Politico, leading to Republicans lashing out at the findings as “junk.”
TRUMP: We're gonna have numbers like nobody has ever seen before
MacCALLUM: When do you think we're gonna see that? Recent Fox polling showed 52% said the economy is worse under this administration
After showing new images of the late-night comedian less than 24 hours after his show was suddenly pulled, she noted President Donald Trump has made it "clear he is not done."
"The president is now threatening more networks," she said, playing a clip of Trump suggesting networks could lose their licenses for negative coverage.
Burnett then played a devastating series of clips to make the point that Republicans used to defend free speech, telling viewers, "If you are surprised at what has happened, maybe it is because you took the president, the vice president and the chairman of the FCC at their word when Trump came into office."
"If you don't have free speech, you don't have a country," Trump said in a 2022 clip played by Burnett.
"Thank God we have a president now who believes in free speech," Vice President JD Vance says in a subsequent clip.
"Free speech, diversity of opinion — and those are the bedrocks of democracy," said Brendan Carr, Trump's head of the Federal Communications Commission.
Carr, she noted, was the "very same man who made this threat this week after Kimmel's comments regarding Charlie Kirk."
"They have a license granted by us at the FCC, and that comes with it an obligation to operate in the public interest," Carr tells far-right podcaster Benny Johnson. He later adds: "But frankly, when you see stuff like this — I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."
Burnett slammed Carr over his abrupt 180, and hurled his own tweet back at him.
"Threats obviously don't get more clearer than that, and that threat is a real about-face from a man, Brendan Carr, who, in December of 2023, wrote — and I want to quote him — 'Free speech is the counterweight. It is the check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarians' dream.'"
After playing a clip of Kimmel's words that got him targeted, Burnett played a 2021 clip of Fox News host Jesse Watters making an inflammatory joke about Dr. Anthony Fauci.
"Now you go in for the kill shot. The kill shot with an ambush? Deadly. Because he doesn't see it coming. This is when you say, 'Dr. Fauci, you funded risky research at a sloppy Chinese lab, the same lab that sprung this pandemic on the world. You know why people don't trust you, don't you?' Boom, he is dead is done."
Watters was promoted a month after the comment.
Burnett also played remarks from other right-wing pundits making light of Paul Pelosi's hammer attack, in which he was hospitalized with a skull fracture.
"There was a lot of really ugly rhetoric and conspiracy theories coming from the right at the time," she noted.
"At 82 years old, and comes home to find out that her husband's playing hide the hammer with the Black Lives Matter guy!" exclaimed Jason Whitlock on Fox News in 2022.
"We can't confirm or deny your suggestion," a coy Tucker Carlson replies in a subsequent clip.
"It's MAGA extremists behind this, because they always attract illegal alien nudists who live in school buses, who think they're Jesus Christ," Greg Gutfeld yells at viewers.
Donald Trump Jr., Burnett noted, posted a photo on Instagram of a hammer and underwear after Pelosi was attacked.
"Got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready," he wrote.
Elon Musk chimed in, "There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye," linking to an article suggesting the attack stemmed from a drunken encounter with a male sex worker.
