Sunday Morning Talk Show Thread 15 November 2026

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Margaret Brennan anchors: Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy; Sen. Bill Cassidy (RINO-Loser); Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.); Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.); former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) (under Trump’s first term) Chris Krebs; Dmitri Alperovitch, co-founder and former CTO of CrowdStrike.

FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Anchor Shannon Bream: White House Counsel Will Scharf; Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.); Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D -el Salvador.); American sportscaster Jim Gray. Panel: Francesca Chambers, Horace Cooper, Richard Fowler and Reince Priebus.

MEET THE dePRESS (NBC): Hosted by Kristen Welker: Former Vice President Mike Pence; Sen.-elect Scott Colom (D-Miss.). (MSDNC) Panel: Carol E. Lee, Carlos Curbelo and Jon Tester—EVERY one of these easily forgotten angry Leftists slinging anti-American balderdash are featured on MSNBC/Now!

THIS WEEK (ABC): Hosted by Little Georgie Steponallofus (or is it Martha Raddish?): Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-El Salvador.); Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio); Reps.-elect Cait Conley (D-N.Y.), Nancy Lacore (D-S.C.) and JoAnna Mendoza (D-Ariz.). Panel: Donna Brazile, Chris Christie, Sarah Isgur and Amy Walter—the same Ugly, shameless, Left-wing Propagandists and Fat RINOs!

STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Anchored by Jake Toe-Tapper (or is it Dana Bash?): Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders; Sen.-elect Scott Colom (D-Miss.); Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-El Salvador). Panel: Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), Jamal Simmons, Ronna McDaniel and Maya Wiley—Except for Mike, Tapper’s totally and toxically biased group of democrap talking points parrots!

SUNDAY MORNING FUTURES (FNC): The Show to watch? NOT Hosted by Maria Bartiromo. Now Larry Kudlow: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.);Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent; House Minority Leader-designate Jim Jordan (R-Ohio); Retired Army General and United States Special Envoy for Ukraine Keith Kellogg.

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From my AI discussion:

BUTCHER'S THUMB - Sunday, November 15th, 2026
(Hybrid Format)

General Mood
The election is over, but the Sunday shows haven't quite figured out how to stop campaigning. Much of this morning's lineup is devoted to the Democrats' victory, their new faces, their leadership fights and the inevitable panels explaining to us what the voters really meant.

But give credit where it is due. This is a stronger news lineup than some Sundays. CBS is well positioned to dig into the FAA breakdown and cybersecurity, Fox News Sunday says it will take up the turmoil at Nvidia, and Chris Van Hollen's challenge to Chuck Schumer certainly isn't being ignored. Van Hollen appears to have earned his own Sunday morning frequent-flyer card.

The more interesting question is what falls through the cracks. A major change at the top of Trump's White House, the failed effort to impeach Pete Hegseth, and gasoline prices suddenly moving sharply downward after months of "affordability" politics all seem to have considerably less appeal.

So this week's Thumb is smaller.

But it still has a fingernail.

What's Not Being Covered

For all the post-election analysis filling the Sunday shows, there are still a few significant stories that appear to have fallen off the Sunday morning menu:

Susie Wiles Out, Stephen Miller In - Trump has put one of his toughest and most trusted fighters in charge of the White House staff. Stephen Miller is a political bulldog who doesn't appear particularly frightened by Democrats, which may explain why his promotion has produced such howls from the Left. What will a Miller-run White House mean for Trump's final two years? Apparently that's not high on Sunday morning's list of questions.

Pete Hegseth Impeachment Vote Fails - After all the attention devoted to Democratic efforts to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the effort failed. You might think the failure of an impeachment effort against a sitting Cabinet secretary would merit some Sunday morning discussion. So far, the announced lineups suggest otherwise.

Gas Prices Are Falling - Remember gasoline prices? Before the election, high gas prices were part of the affordability crisis and widely treated as a political liability for Republicans. Trump himself blamed high gasoline prices for Republican losses. Now they're moving rather dramatically in the other direction. AAA has Alabama regular at $3.4939 a gallon, down from $3.9537 a month ago.

Gas prices mattered when they were going up.

Let's see if they still matter when they're going down.

Show-by-Show Breakdown

CBS - Face the Nation (Margaret Brennan)
With Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy now in the lineup, Brennan has the right guest to address the FAA nationwide ground stop and the serious questions it raised about America's aging air-traffic infrastructure. Former CISA director Chris Krebs and former CrowdStrike CTO Dmitri Alperovitch also give CBS an unusually strong cybersecurity bench, and an obvious opening to discuss this week's Microsoft cloud outage and the broader vulnerability of the technology on which government and business increasingly depend.

Then there is Sen. Bill Cassidy, one of the Republicans who voted to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial and who subsequently finished third in his own 2026 Republican primary. Nothing says "let's hear from Republican voters" quite like booking the Republican they just sent packing and can't stand.

Verdict: Potentially the most substantive lineup of the morning on infrastructure and cybersecurity, with CBS's choice of Republican messenger providing a very familiar Sunday-show touch.

FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Shannon Bream)
Bream has plenty of room for both the Trump agenda and the Democrats' post-election leadership fight. Fox has also specifically promoted Jensen Huang's resignation from Nvidia as one of the subjects it intends to cover. Chris Van Hollen's challenge to Chuck Schumer should get plenty of oxygen here.

The panel at least offers recognizable voices from different political directions rather than pretending everyone arrived at the table without an opinion.

Verdict: A broad political menu with at least one major non-Washington story, Nvidia, making the cut. Probably one of the better-balanced opportunities of the morning.

NBC - MEET THE dePRESS (Kristen Welker)
Mike Pence and Scott Colom point heavily toward the aftermath of the midterms and the future direction of both parties. Pence gives Welker a Republican who has long since broken with Trump, while Colom represents the Democrats' newly victorious Senate class.

The panel makes it difficult to imagine the conversation straying very far from the standard Washington post-election analysis.

Verdict: Lots of politics about politics. Expect considerably more discussion of what the election "means" than of the stories happening outside the Beltway.

ABC - THIS WEEK
ABC practically hangs a banner over its intended subject. Chris Van Hollen is challenging Chuck Schumer for leadership, while three Democratic representatives-elect provide fresh voices after the party's midterm victory. Mike Turner supplies the Republican side of the aisle.

Then comes the familiar Sunday roundtable. Whatever else happens, ABC appears determined to spend a substantial amount of Sunday morning explaining the new political landscape to us.

Verdict: The Democratic victory and what comes next look like the main event. Plenty of election aftermath; whether much room survives for anything else remains to be seen.

CNN - STATE OF THE UNION
CNN also has Chris Van Hollen and Scott Colom, so once again the Democratic leadership fight and the post-midterm direction of the party are sitting right there on the guest list. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, however, gives CNN a prominent Trump-aligned Republican voice with which to challenge that narrative.

The panel promises another round of post-election combat.

Verdict: Heavy on the Democratic victory and leadership struggle, but Sanders gives CNN an opportunity for a real opposing argument rather than merely talking about Republicans in their absence.

FOX NEWS - SUNDAY MORNING FUTURES (Larry Kudlow)
This is the outlier. Ron Johnson, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Jim Jordan and Keith Kellogg point toward governing rather than simply analyzing the election: the economy, Congress and foreign policy.

Bessent also gives Kudlow the most obvious opening of the morning to talk about affordability and falling fuel prices. With gas prices suddenly moving sharply downward after being blamed for Republican troubles before the election, we'll see whether anyone notices.

Verdict: The lineup most clearly aimed at policy rather than political anthropology. If even this show doesn't notice falling gas prices, our little affordability experiment will become considerably more interesting.

The Butcher's Thumb, as usual, is the product of a long discussion and collaboration between yours truly and my SI. I supply the opinions, historical detours, occasional profanity and atrocious voice-to-text. The SI checks my facts, tells me when I'm full of it, and somehow turns the resulting mess into English.

“The Sunday Morning Bray”, by Bray!

Isaiah 1:18King James Version
Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

The second movie of the Dark Knight trilogy was the Dark Knight which was a conservative movie masterpiece that was stolen by Heath Ledger as the Joker who played the part perfectly. Christian Bale and Michael Cain were great supporting actors playing off of the Joker’s insanity and captivating lines. One of which speaking of the Batman which was the movie theme, “You either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain.” All three characters, Alfred, The Joker, and Batman say that line, so people get it.

This was originally written about GW Bush and 911 during the Iraq war as he lost incredible popularity after 911 until the masses turned against him and went with those who wanted to watch everything burn which Barak did. It applies even more to President Trump who inherited a country with runaway inflation, $8/doz eggs if you could find them, shortages of the most basic items, and gas running over $5/gal as well as a border that was wide open and housing foreigners in the Hilton while drugs and sex cartels made billions.

President Trump came in as the Batman who solved all of those massive crisis’s and rather than play small ball went about rebuilding America from the ground up. He closed the border immediately and began deporting people using ICE which gave the opposition a reason to exist to keep rapists and murderers in the country. It gave them a reason for living just like the Ukraine war when everyone had the flag flying and girls wearing it on their cheeks to show their virtue. How is that never ending war working out?

Next, he stopped the massive inflation, getting eggs back down to $2.50/doz and gas back under $2/gal before he decided to take the biggest challenge of all. He wanted to make sure Iran never had a nuclear weapon and hit them with the Midnight Hammer attack which destroyed their nuclear capabilities 1000 feet underground. The size of his problems are exhaustive, and MAGA is exhausted when they should be proud of remaking America.

Then came the decapitation of the Iran government which took out the Ayatollah and finished their threat as was told by their ambassador. He said they had enough enriched uranium to build five bombs and launched two missiles that flew 3,500 miles into the Asian ocean missing its target which was the US Diego Garcia base. If one of those missiles had a nuclear warhead and hit an Asian, Middle Eastern, or European city the world would be changed immediately into a massive chaotic financial and social anarchy. The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz would be a Sunday picnic. He cannot afford that possibility no matter how small the odds.

This war lasted too long as did the price of gas and he became the villain. A large percentage of MAGA and most of the Repub Party abandoned him and agreed he was now a villain forgetting all the things he did to solve their crisis’. The Party only plays small ball and plays by the rules set over the decades to live by polls and make the people happy, which now is Communism so you will see them playing for their affection. The Joker had a great scene where he talked about the politicians only playing by their rules and cannot think outside of their own little worlds unlike him and Batman.

In the end Batman takes the blame of the crimes of Harvey Dent to make Harvey the symbol of heroism while Batman goes on the run taking the blame being the true hero. President Trump is in a different position that the economy he built is recovering quickly just like Reagan took 4 years to recover, Trump’s is taking two and understands economics better than Reagan. The war took longer but with gas lowering dramatically there will be questioning coming once it gets back under $3.

What may be unrecoverable is the Communist machine may be too big to overcome. They have turned their unions, schools, churches, mosques, NGOs, and universities into Vote Canvasing machines.

Mosques and liberal Christian churches use their entire membership to knock doors and harvest votes. They are GOTV machines to harvest votes by the thousands. They have been taught how to cover old folk homes and apartment complexes to make sure every Dem gets their ballots in which leads to thousands of volunteers knocking doors while Repubs are lucky to get 30 to 40 door knockers and Conservative churches have no interest in having their members get involved with politics. They don’t want to dirty their hands with politics while they watch the world grow darker and darker.

Their machine now is based on hatred and anger which may wane in the next two years when people realize they were lied to, but the hatred will never leave. This structure is in place even though they have no interest in making lives better financially, only spiritually through the Baby Killing Cult which is their virtuous path to heaven.

Now is the time to choose, are you going to let Trump be the villain or are you going to stand back up with him and let him be the hero again? America is tired from all the giant problems he has taken on and solved but she needs to redouble her efforts to support the unsupportable and let the greatest freedom ever given continue against all odds, once again. Being a villain is what heroes do.

Pray for The Dark Knight

Note: The above opinion is not necessarily my own, but FReeper Bray’s. If you wish to discuss this, please ping Bray.

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