9-28-25
From the desk of Rich Stephens
News for week ending September 27, 2025 (Video)
Below find the expanded text from tonight’s broadcast. For corrections or additions, contact Rich directly.
UN General Assembly
We begin with world news. The United Nations met in New York for the 80th General Assembly. World leaders gave speeches that largely centered on women’s rights, climate change and the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Trump spoke Tuesday, noting malfunctioning teleprompters and an escalator before telling the assembly that the UN has tremendous potential but is not living up to it. He scolded NATO countries for continuing to buy oil and gas from Russia, called for the end of research into biological weapons, and chided the UN for providing support to uncontrolled migration. He also criticized climate change as being a con and green initiatives as a scam to “redistribute manufacturing and industrial activities from developed countries that follow the insane rules that are put down to polluting countries that break the rules and are making a fortune.”
Ahead of Trump’s speech Tuesday morning, the Secret Service announced it had found and dismantled a collocated network of 300 SIM servers housing one hundred thousand sim cards in the New York area. The network was capable attacks including denial of service attacks in the area and allowed anonymous, encrypted communication between nefarious actors. Given the proximity and timing, Secret Service is investigating whether this operation was intended to disrupt the UN General Assembly in New York this week.
Secret Service X Post
Secret Service Announcement (video)
Friday morning Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived to speak at the UN. Video feeds showed Muslim representatives from around the world filing out as he took the podium to cheers and clapping by supporting delegates. He condemned the October 7 attacks by Hamas and read the names of the 20 hostages still believed to be alive. He announced that his speech was being broadcast via loudspeakers across Gaza as well as live streamed to every cell phone in Gaza. He spoke directly to the hostages, telling them that Israel has not forgotten them and will bring them home.
X Post Showing Speaker System (video)
Politics
New York Tax Cuts
New York Governor Kathy Hochul held a press conference Friday announcing proposals for income tax cuts, inflation refund checks and expansion of child tax credits. Tax cuts for the middle class are expected to impact 77 percent of New Yorkers.
Kathy Hochul Tax Cut Press Conference
James Comey Indicted
On Thursday, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the indictment of former FBI director James Comey by a federal grand jury. The two charges, stem from Comey’s testimony to the senate in September of 2020 and include giving a false statement to congress and obstruction of a congressional investigation.
Trump on Autism and Acetaminophen
Monday, President Trump spoke alongside RFK Jr and Marty Makary (ma-carey) of the FDA to announce new guidance for infant vaccines and the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy. The FDA is notifying physicians and updating labels to indicate that the drug can increase the risk of autism when taken during pregnancy. Additionally, they are recommending that vaccines be spread out in infants to reduce autism risk.
Government Funding and Maybe Shutdown
Hakeem Jeffries held a press conference Thursday to speak about the potential of a government shutdown if the legislature can’t reach an agreement on a funding bill. He continued to assert that the republican plan constitutes a cut because some Affordable Care Act tax credits will expire in the coming weeks and called their position indefensible.
President Trump called Democrat demands unserious and ridiculous in a post on Truth Social announcing that he was cancelling a meeting with Democratic leadership earlier in the week. Both sides maintain that if a shutdown occurs, it will be the complete fault of the other.
Hakeem Jeffries with 5 days to go (video)
Jeffries with 4 days to go (video)
Trump Truth Social Response to Democrats
Florida Steps to Combat Violent Extremism
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier spoke in Orlando Monday morning to discuss the state’s efforts to combat violent extremism.
In response to the death of Charlie Kirk and other instances of politically motivated violence Florida is launching a portal myfloridalegal.com/cve where citizens can report threats of violence online.
Uthmeier vowed to prosecute speech not considered to be protected by the first amendment, saying that it is not a violation of the first amendment to expect teachers to create a safe learning environment.
State department of education commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas ‘Stassi’ also spoke, saying that teachers are tasked with protecting the health, safety and welfare of students, but some have celebrated violence and this is unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
He indicated that the state will investigate these instances and revoke licenses of educators who fail to protect the health, safety and welfare of students. A link to the portal and press releases from state officials are available at the cold take dot com.
Press Conference about Violent Extremism
Attorney General Press Release
Current Events
Jimmy Kimmel
In another story related to free speech, Californians held a rally Monday in la to protest what they called an attack on free speech, accusing the FCC of authoritarian tactics over the removal of Jimmy Kimmel from the late night lineup on ABC. This story has been extremely hard to cover because of the amount of back and forth.
Initially, Nexstar, one of the largest ABC affiliate networks, decided to take the show off the air. After that, ABC suspended the show ‘indefinitely’ which turned out to be only a week. When ABC announced the return of the show, Sinclair joined Nexstar in preempting the broadcast, but both announced Friday that they would put Kimmel back on the air.
Tuesday’s return show drew five times its normal viewership despite being shown in only 77% of markets. Ultimately I don’t feel that this story really rises to the level of news. However, there is a question about whether the FCC statements constitute censorship given their ability to fine ABC or revoke broadcast licenses. Again, I can’t tell you what to think, just what happened and this one had more back and forth than Djokavik and Sinner in the Wimbledon finals…
FCC Chair Statement About Kimmel
Nexstar Reinstatement Statement
Sinclair Reinstatement Statement
Google Admits Censorship During Biden Admin
Speaking of censorship, in response to a subpoena from the house judiciary committee, Google sent a letter to Representative Jim Jordan stating that during the COVID-19 pandemic, Google was pressured by the Biden administration to censor and remove content that did not violate platform policies. The company stated specifically that YouTube has removed restrictions on COVID-19 and election related integrity content and that channels removed under these restrictions will be given the opportunity for reinstatement.
DOT on Unlawful Issuance of CDL’s and Mitigation
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy spoke Friday about unlawful issuance of commercial driver licenses across the country. The DOT has issued an emergency rule preventing non-citizens from acquiring a CDL unless they meet a new, much more strict set of rules. The order also requires all states to immediately pause issuance of non-domiciled CDL’s until they can come into compliance with the new rules. Additionally, the department of transportation is giving California 30 days to become compliant or lose $160M in transportation funds the first year and $320M in the second year.
DOT Statement of Mitigation Plan
Shooting at Dallas Ice Facility
Wednesday morning a person climbed to the roof of a building near an ICE facility in Dallas and shot at the building, vehicles and surrounding area. No law enforcement officers were injured, but three detainees were shot, one of whom did not survive. FBI director Kash Patel posted a picture on X of unused ammunition with the words ‘Anti Ice’ written on one. While the name of the suspect, who took his own life at the scene, has circulated widely in the media, it has not been released in any official capacity, so we cannot bring any additional details at this time.
DHS Statement about ICE Facility Shooting
Ryan Routh Convicted in Florida
At the federal courthouse in Fort Pierce Florida on Tuesday Ryan Routh was convicted of attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, possessing a firearm in furtherance of a crime of violence, assaulting a federal officer, felon in possession of a firearm and ammunition and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. Routh represented himself during the federal prosecution of his attempted shooting of then-presidential-candidate Donald Trump last September at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach Florida. He could spend the rest of this life in prison.
SpaceX, NASA, NROL
SpaceX completed several successful Falcon 9 missions this week. In California, Space Force satellites were put into orbit on Monday. In Florida on Wednesday, a payload of three separate NASA vehicles was launched to study space weather closer to the sun. Starlink Satellites were also deployed from both coasts in tandem missions on Thursday.
SpaceX X Post SWF0-L1 Deployment
SpaceX X Post Carruthers Deployment
Sports
NFL
In Sports, Heading into today, seven NFL teams remain unbeaten while the Dolphins, Titans and Giants have all begun the season oh and three.
NCAA Football
In college football, Friday night the eighth ranked Seminoles suffered a double overtime loss at unranked University of Virginia.
Ryder Cup
[RYDER CUP WRAPPING UP TODAY – STATUS]
MLB
[MLB – Raleigh – Judge – Playoffs]
Finance and Markets
In Finance and Markets, Fed chair Jerome Powell spoke Tuesday, largely reiterating his comments during last week’s rate cut announcement. He indicated higher prices in the last month over one year ago, noting that it looks related to tariffs but believes this to be a short term challenge. He also said that the Inflationary impact from tariffs has not had much effect on consumers and that companies are not currently hiring but the fed is working to understand why.
Markets were flat this week, posting modest gains from one week ago. The Dow fell 68 points, NASDAQ lost 147 points, the S&P 500 dropped 21 points and gold continued to climb, adding 74 dollars this week to close Friday at three thousand, seven hundred sixty dollars per ounce.
The Cold Take