The Briefing with Albert Mohler - Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

This is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview.Part I (00:14 - 09:33)The Deadly Truth About the Culture of Death: Major Report Unveils a Scandal at Planned Parenthood of Prioritizing Abortion Political Agenda Over HealthcareBotched Care and Tired Staff: Planned Parenthood in Crisis by The New York Times (Katie Benner)Part II (09:33 - 15:22)A Major Cultural Collision in the Making: It Appears a Crisis is Brewing Over DC Hosting WorldPride 2025 Now That Donald Trump is Back in the White HouseWorldPride is on a collision course with Trump’s D.C. takeover by The Washington Post (Colbert I. King)Part III (15:22 - 21:16)News Media in a Cascade of Change: Media Outlets are Bleeding Dollars and Viewers and It’s Showing in the Major Shifts of Media PersonalitiesLester Holt, Longtime ‘NBC Nightly News’ Anchor, Will Depart Show by The Wall Street Journal (Isabella Simonetti)Joy Reid’s show canceled in programming shakeup at MSNBC by LA Times (Stephen Battaglio)Part IV (21:16 - 26:14)Trump is Disrupting the Legacy Media – What’s Behind Action Against Associated Press and the Changes in the White House Press Corps?Sign up to receive The Briefing in your inbox every weekday morning.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.To write Dr. Mohler or submit a question for The Mailbox, go here.

It's Wednesday, February 26, 2025. I'm Albert Moeller, and this is the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. It tells you something when the most influential newspaper in the United States runs a front-page article with the headline, A Crisis of Care at Planned Parenthood Clinics. This turns out to be a story that looks big and indeed is big, because this is an expose of lax medical standards at Planned Parenthood Clinics. clinics. The very fact that this kind of article, this news report, appears in the mainstream media, tells us something. If they're reporting on Planned Parenthood representing an organization in crisis, particularly a crisis in the delivery of medical care, you can count on the fact it's a big story. And even as the New York Times begins this account, it reminds us, quote,

Planned Parenthood is synonymous with the fight to preserve abortion rights, but it is also the health care provider of last resort to millions of the poor. Americans. Its clinics offer cancer screenings, birth control, annual gynecological exams, and prenatal care regardless of whether patients can pay, end quote. Well, we need to unpack that just a moment. Indeed, Planned Parenthood is a vast organization of clinics, and it is true. And let's just state this even as the truth would require it. Yes, Planned Parenthood is about more than abortion. But the whole point of this story is that when the money gets spent, the National Planned Parenthood Federation spends the money in the legal and political defense of abortion,

not on health care. The crisis in the delivery of health care is made clear very early in the article, where their paper tells us that its review, quote, of clinic documents and legal filings, as well as interviews with more than 50 current and forward Planned Parenthood executives, consultants, and medical staff members, found that some clinics are so short of cash that care has suffered. The article continues, quote, many operate with aging equipment and poorly trained staff, as turnover has

increased because of rock-bottom salaries. Patient counts have shrunk from a high of 5 million and 900 clinics in the 1990s to 2.1 million patients and 600 clinics today. The article continues, quote, the lack of resources is startling. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, Planned Parenthood has seen a fundraising boom with $498 million in donations that year. But here's the key issue, and this is such a telling revelation, quote, but little of it goes to the state affiliates to provide health care at clinics. Instead, under the national bylaws, the majority of the money is spent on the legal and political fight to maintain abortion rights, end quote. Let's just stop there for a moment and realize what we're being told. We're being told of vast hundreds of millions of dollars being raised,

in the name of health care, but it is actually being spent even by the requirements of the organization's own bylaws at the national level on the political and legal fight for abortion. They're raising money on health care, but they're spending money on the abortion issue. That tells you where Planned Parenthood really is. But let's just remind ourselves, they do claim over and over again that they're one of the nation's largest health care providers. This expose in the New York Times, let's just remind ourselves, not a conservative media outlet. This expose in the New York Times tells us of a widespread scandal of inadequate medical care, horrifying things, sewage leaking into recovery rooms, botched medical procedures, including,

and this is just a horrifying combination of words, botched abortions. The financial problem is not even across the country. We are told, quote, there are 49 state affiliates of Planned Parenthood, and each is its own fief with separate management structures, and budgets in different local political climates. Local fundraising is robust in places like New York City and Los Angeles. Clinics in Nebraska and Kansas have had a harder time raising money locally as anti-abortion sentiment in those areas has grown. End quote.

Now remember, the paper told us that it had conducted 50 interviews with persons connected directly with Planned Parenthood's so-called health care. And we are told that many of these offered reports about substandard care, certifying conditions in the clinics and botched procedures such as botched IUD insertions, etc. Quote, yet clinic employees said repeatedly in interviews that patients routinely encountered long weights, under-trained staff members, and trouble even booking an appointment. Now, one plan parenthood, former official said, quote, we're supposed to be the organization

for people that don't have resources, but the paper also tells us that some people, some women have been turned away because they couldn't afford the cost of what was charged at Planned Parenthood. Furthermore, employees said there has been a constant pressure to more than double the number of patients seen from the present $2.1 million to help bring in more revenue, end quote. It's just incredibly important that we pay attention to the New York Times when it offers a report like this, including this statement, quote, but leaders say they have repeatedly prioritized the fight for abortion rights over clinics because, the political fight was fundamental to the organization's ability to operate, end quote.

Now, remember, that statement is not an accusation some conservative Christian pro-life activist made about a Planned Parenthood Clinic or about the network of clinics. That's a statement from within the organization itself. It's also, in much of this article, the reporting that is offered by reporters as they summarize the situation as they have found it, a situation that rises to the level of scandal indeed of crisis. But here's how the massive investigative report concludes. Quote, dozens of current and former employees also said that their complaints were met with reminders that they were in a mission moment, meaning a time of crisis for reproductive rights

so urgent that it overshadowed their concerns. Some have worried that criticizing practices in the clinics could empower the anti-abortion movement at a time when the organization faces more challenges than ever before. So many remain quite. quiet, quote, we're afraid of damaging the mission, end quote, said one of the persons involved in Planned Parenthood leadership. Let's just look at those words again. These are words offered in this investigative report. Dozens of current and former employees said their complaints were met with reminders. They were in a mission moment. What does that mean? A mission moment. Meaning, said the paper, quote, a time of crisis for reproductive rights so urgent that it overshadowed their concerns.

So the political fight for abortion rights, which, after all, is what we associate mainly with Planned Parenthood is exactly where their priorities are, even when it minimizes and subverts the medical care that is offered at clinics. But you'll notice that when Planned Parenthood presents itself to the public again and again, they keep declaring themselves to be a health care provider, one of the nation's largest health care providers. They want to act like abortion is just incidental, but here is the lie revealed. The lie is just made very clear in all of its falsity here. The truth comes out in this article

that the agenda of the National Planned Parenthood Federation is abortion first, abortion second, abortion third. Everything else takes a backseat. I also want to look at this previous sentence, quote, but leaders say they have repeatedly prioritized the fight for abortion rights over clinics because the political fight was so fundamental to the organizations of the military.

to operate. End quote. Here's an interesting question. When supposedly did that begin? When did the crisis, the political crisis on abortion, become so consuming that it became the all-dominating purpose for Planned Parenthood? Here's where I have to argue that with the advent of Roe v. Wade in 1973, this has pretty much been the reality ever since. This is not a recent development. This is a continuation of Planned Parenthood. They have long wanted to claim that they are a health care organization, but they are actually an organized arm, the primary organized arm in the United States of the culture of death. And even as this article in the New York Times, a front page story, massive investigative report makes clear the health

of women in their clinics in areas related to health care, even abortion care, it comes secondary to pushing the ideological, political, and legal fight for abortion. It just lays bare what this organization is all about. Now, we actually knew this for some time, but we didn't have the documentation provided in this article. This is the kind of article that should reverberate through state medical authorities. It should reverberate through the halls of legislatures. I don't know that it will, but it should. And I also have to hope that the Trump administration will take note of this investigative report and act accordingly. This investigative report, makes very clear that what we are dealing with here is nothing less, nothing other than the

culture of death. Let's call it what it is. Well, okay, next let's go to the nation's capital where it appears a collision is in the making. Colbert King for the Washington Post tells us that there is a collision course now represented by World Pride and the Trump administration and the Trump administration's influence in the District of Columbia. What's going on here? Well, first of all, What is World Pride? We are told that it is a worldwide celebration. You've got this, of LGBTQ Pride. It is going to bring many people to the nation's capital. Washington, D.C., competed to host World Pride 2025. It won the assignment. It is to mark the 50th anniversary of pride celebrations. It's going to take place in Washington, D.C. And yet, there is someone else in Washington, D.C. And that is President Donald Trump. And that has created an apparent cultural collision in the making. Just keep in mind the flurry of executive orders handed down by President Trump on, in particular, the transgender issue. And you understand that it's going to be rather awkward for an awful lot of LGBTQ activists from around the world to gather in Washington,

D.C. to celebrate progress when, at least by their definition, that is not what they are currently witnessing. Another little scandal here, by the way, and this is just inserted in the article as if this makes sense. Quote, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and the D.C. Council provided $5.25 million to support worldwide 2025. Then we're told this, quote, the point of the whole undertaking, as the city's website puts it, is to stage, quote, an event that celebrates diversity, equality, and love on a global scale, end quote. Well, there you have it. D.E.L. in this case, diversity, equality, and love, and not on a local basis, not just in the District of Columbia, but on a global scale. Now, I pointed to the $5.25 million of tax money that D.C.'s government is putting in to support the effort and the fact that it is publicized on the city's own website.

But that's not the reason the article's appearing. The article is appearing now because of the collision between the reality of the Trump administration and World Pride as it's going to. to take place in Washington, D.C., May 17 to June 8, we are told. The Washington Post then tells us, quote, the bidding to bring World Pride to D.C. And the planning for the many pride events now on tap occurred without the reality of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Elections have consequences, writes the paper, quote, and the presence of Trump and his anti-DGI policies is being felt in ways the World Pride organizers might never have imagined. End quote.

Major corporate sponsors of the event have pulled out, including Booz Allen Hamilton. That company, by the way, has vast government contracts. And evidently it prizes those vast government contracts, now in the age of the second Trump administration, more than it prized its corporate sponsorship of World Pride. The Washington Post then reports, quote, other sponsors might be wavering too. end quote. Well, it's not just the sponsors that are pulling out. It is also some LGBTQ plus advocacy organizations, one in Canada, known as EGAL Canada. It has, quote, announced it will not be attending any events in the United States, including World Pride 2025, because of actions taken by Trump that roll back programs and

policies in support of transgender people, end quote. So notice carefully that this organization, activist organization in Canada, didn't merely say, it's not going to come to Washington, D.C. It is going to stand by its principles, which means not setting a foot in the United States of America. At least not while Donald Trump is president of the United States. But let's just understand that it's really hard to be proud of Pride 2025 when a lot of people are, well, too proud to be there for the Pride Festival

when Donald Trump is president of the United States. They're not proud of that. So this is the way this kind of active. You hold these big international meetings. This one's supposed to be an anniversary after all. You're supposed to get together for further activism to encourage one another and push your ideological agenda, but it is really hard to push with much enthusiasm if the meeting is going to be held in Washington, D.C. under current circumstances. That tells you how a lot of this activism is affected deeply by the response of the Trump administration and its executive orders in recent days and weeks. But, you know, in a Christian worldview perspective, it does help us to pause for a moment and think, you know, you are looking at two absolutely irreconcilable worldviews here. One is proud of Pride 2025, and the other is not. The collision of worldviews is, of course, far deeper than anything that could be described as Pride 2025, even deeper than the LGBTQ revolution. It's at the level of whether or not there is an objective sexual morality.

and two objective genders, and at least on much of this, the Trump administration has stated the obvious, but the obvious is absolutely toxic to World Pride 2025. It is important for Christians to be able to go backwards a bit on some of these issues and understand that nothing here is happening by accident. As you look at this, you recognize that Washington, D.C. is not accidentally the host for World Pride 2025. it was involved in bidding for it. It wanted it. It put more than $5 million of money behind it. But it turns out it's not going to be quite the celebration the city had planned.

But as we're also thinking further about how the culture operates, we understand the importance of the mainstream media, the mass media in the United States. And in particular, we need to look at some of the vast shifts now taking place in the name of news under the category of news coverage. and we just remind ourselves very quickly that going back only a few decades, there were very few outlets in terms of the mainstream media. That's how the mainstream media became mainstream and also exclusive. You had the three major television networks, ABC, CBS, NBC. You had the big name Mastead Daily Newspapers, and of course you still had some major news coverage, which came by radio, but that was about it. All that began to break up with the development of digital culture and the internet, and we're now talking about only a few decades, but now we are

reaching something of a warp speed and transformation of news coverage, and that's reflected in the fact that as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and others are reporting, we are looking right now at a cascade of changes in terms of, let's say, even the personnel, the personalities on these major news programs. And in particular, looking at MSNs, NBC and at CNN and some of the other legacy media. For instance, the Wall Street Journal read a headline, quote, NBC's Holt, that is Lester Holt, to depart as anchor of nightly news after serving in that role for a decade. Now, all the right stuff is said by NBC and by Lester Holt. It's very friendly. Lester Holt's going to continue to host Dateline, but it is also clear the NBC is hemorrhaging money,

and one of the things that's in the background, does so many of these changes, is that the big news, channels, and networks are doing their best to cut budgets as fast as possible. And some of these folks, and you can see Chris Wallace at CNN, among them, basically got out because they weren't willing to work for less money. It's rather a blow to have your salary cut,

but it's the industry that is failing here, but there are certain sectors of the industry failing more obviously than other. I mentioned the fact that in the lead-up to the 2004 national election last November, CNN didn't have a single program in the top tier of viewership. And that appears rather stunning. CNN was trying to position itself and has for years somewhere between conservative Fox News and liberal MSNBC. But here's another lesson for us.

It turns out that people really aren't looking for that kind of product. Furthermore, I also have to insert here that CNN, was far more liberal than it admitted itself to be during that period. Viewers know this. But even as you're looking at Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, you're looking at major internet realities and entities. You're looking at major headlines now about the people who supposedly give us the headlines. Yesterday's edition of the Los Angeles Times tells us, quote, Joy Reid is out at MSNBC amid a schedule shakeup. And Joy Reid was a major host of a program, she was quite identified on the left. MSNBC puts itself on the left, but MSNBC is after

all a business, and as a business, it has to have income, and it's making decisions accordingly. The LA Times tells us, quote, big changes are afoot at MSNBC. The Progressive News Network canceled several shows and will expand anchor shifts as it prepares for life after its coming split from NBC News. The Comcast Corporation-owned channel on Monday confirmed the departure of host Joy Reid, who will be replaced by a trio, and it goes on telling us, quote, the changes are set to occur in late April. They arrive ahead of the plan to spend MSNBC off into a new company with other Comcast cable networks, including CNBC, Golf Channel, and USA Network, end quote. In other words, it's a mess. Other headlines that came out just yesterday tell us that Rachel Maddow,

the very leftist host of an NBC program is going to be going back to once a week, but she's decrying the firing of Joy Reid, and then the headline came out just after that one telling us that Rachel Maddow's staff has been largely fired. It's hard to keep up with the headlines, hour by hour these days. At least one apparent winner right now, or at least on the upswing at MSNBC, is Jim Pisaki, who was press secretary to former President Joe Biden. She had been a personality on MSNBC for some time. Now she is being given the 9 o'clock slot, which is a big. It is a very important slot for MSNBC. It's going to be interesting to see if she can hold it. But, of course, when you're looking at people on the left, they read everything through a DEI lens.

And without going into detail, let's just say that MSNBC has not been acting like they care much about DEI. When it comes to making their decisions, it's not so much DEI as MSNBC. By the way, speaking of the political and ideological slant, Benjamin Mullen's report in the New York Times about the departure of Joy Reid, not by her choice, it cites Reed as saying, quote, we supported and defended real history, the 1619 project, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and access to books for our children and students. And we did it all, she said, with a smile and a sense of humor, end quote. Well, I guess I missed the sense of humor, but what I want to document there is that she is citing very clearly only positions from the left,

which she says she was very proud to have trumpeted during the time she had that very important slot at MSNBC. But there are two additional big stories when it comes to news, and one of them is that AP's representative inside the White House press corps has been denied access, and it comes down to something a lot of Americans don't understand. The Associated Press style guide has long been used by many other journalistic and academic authorities in order to establish right usage and right spelling. Okay, so why did the Trump administration kick out the Associated Press? It's not because they don't like the letters A&P. It is because the Associated Press has refused to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The White House has noticed. But that leads to something

and that is the fact that access in terms of the top tier in the White House press corps and in the facilities of the White House at press briefings and all the rest, that has largely been controlled by a group known as the White House Correspondents Association. It has for decades controlled that access. It's determined who will be right there before the president and who will not. The Associated Press predictably went to court and a U.S. federal district court refused to take action directly against the Trump administration on this, but the Trump appointed judge did ask the White House to reconsider its policy

so that it would not be accused of viewpoint discrimination. But then the White House came out with a further announcement, basically saying the White House Correspondence Association is out as the organization deciding who gets in the inner ring anyway. Thanks for all your service, you're not needed anymore. Instead, the White House said that its own press team would make these assignments. Now, here's what's really interesting. It's not just the mainstream media adjusting the chairs. You have the White House now saying, you know, when you talk about influential media these days,

you're not just talking about news networks, certainly not even just the cable news networks. You're not just talking about the legacy newspapers. You're talking about digital media. You're talking about podcasters. You're talking about a variety of new media. And they're going to be represented at the table, too. So, you know, this may be litigated in a litigious society. It's hard to imagine how some folks are not going to take this to the courts one way or the other. But it is important to recognize the White House does have the authority to establish the rules whereby the White House press will make the president and White House officials available to the press and how it will release information. So it's going to be a very interesting new day. And speaking of new days, one final issue here. is this. You talk about the legacy media. One of the issues is the disruption of the entire media

ecology, so much so that, for instance, the Los Angeles Times just on Monday of this week reports that there has been a mass shift in terms of news consumption, not only away from radio, newspapers, the legacy television networks, not only from even the main identifiable sites in terms of the digital streaming media, it turns out that now, YouTube is one of the largest providers of news in the United States. Quote, the platform, which is just 20 years old, has for some time been the most watched streamer on U.S. TV screens, according to Nielsen. Quote, YouTube, which the vast majority of people watch for free, accounted for 10.8% of television viewing in January, again beating Netflix, Disney Streaming Suite, and Amazon's Prime Video in terms of engagement, end quote.

But here's something that's something that's. surprised me, quote, in a recent blog post, YouTube chief executive Neil Mohan said that TV screens are now the primary way people watch the service surpassing mobile devices, end quote. Honestly, I would have thought that more YouTube streaming would take place on mobile devices, including smartphones, than on televisions. So that's to say, YouTube has now become dominant in this sense, at least the biggest player on the landscape, when it comes to what people watch on their televisions as well as their phones. But one of the lessons from all of this is how fast all of this is changing before our eyes as the landscape is being transformed, because that's true for now.

By the end of the week, who knows? At that point, YouTube may be used to broadcast what's coming after YouTube. Thanks for listening to the briefing. For more information, go to my website at Albertmohor.com. You can follow me on Twitter or X by going to Twitter.com forward slash Albert Mueller. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbtsk.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to Boisecollege.com. I'm speaking to you from Pasadena, California, and I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.