Tag: Politics

Goodbye to MSNBC

Media and technology conglomerate Comcast is spinning off cable news network MSNBC from its roster, along with a number of other cable networks.

The company announced it will create a new publicly traded entity, which will house MSNBC and NBCUniversal’s additional cable television networks.

Comcast is giving the new company an apt moniker, “SpinCo.”

Unveiling of the plans are shaking up the media landscape and sending shock waves through the network’s offices.

It all came to a head when MSNBC lost over half its viewers following the electoral triumph of President elect Donald Trump.

An additional ratings drop occurred after Joe Scarborough, host of the network’s program “Morning Joe,” revealed that he and wife/co-host Mika Brzezinski had recently met with President elect Trump at Mar-a-Lago, ostensibly to “restart communications.”

The ratings tank and spin-off talk had Scarborough questioning his own future employment with the channel.

“I could be completely wrong. We could all be fired a year from now. You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow,” he said on his show.

There are a number of reasons that the spin-off is happening. First up is the fact that streaming is clobbering cable. Execs are understandably concerned about the steady increase in cord cutting that has taken place, especially among the younger demographic. This segment of viewers is accustomed to having non-bundled options and is partial to streaming media.

Comcast has also let it be known that current chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group Mark Lazarus will be named SpinCo’s CEO. Sources have indicated to Variety that Lazarus spoke to an audience of concerned staffers and talent, which included MSNBC personalities Rachel Maddow, Chris Jansing, and Katy Tur.

MSNBC will evidently be joined by the business news network CNBC in being detached from NBC News.

Since the two networks will no longer be a part of NBC, attendees at the meeting with Lazarus reportedly expressed concerns about whether the use of familiar symbols, which have been used by MSNBC for decades, will be allowed to continue.

In a shocking admission, Lazarus said that because of the spin-off he wasn’t sure whether MSNBC would have to give up its current image, identity, or home.

“Everyone is in a panic because everything is up in the air,” one MSNBC source told The New York Post.

Journalists at the network CNBC are coming apart at the seams at the prospect of being separated from NBC’s news division. This is because MSNBC routinely shares reporting, and a significant part of the network’s daytime schedule uses correspondents from NBC News.

Andrea Mitchell, chief foreign affairs correspondent and chief Washington correspondent for NBC News, has anchored a daily MSNBC show since 2008. And MSNBC’s Katy Tur and José Díaz-Balart have dual roles as journalists for NBC News as well.

Lazarus was unable to answer questions about MSNBC’s newsgathering and whether the cable news outlet would have to develop its own capability for collecting and verifying news, which is a daunting task to say the least.

The idea of giving MSNBC a makeover has been tossed around for a long time. The network wasn’t always the far-left echo chamber that it is today.

Back in 1996 it originally launched as a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC (although Microsoft would later divest its stake in the TV network).

Like fellow cable networks had previously done, MSNBC would go on to broaden its horizons by doing political coverage as well as opinion-oriented programming. A variety of viewpoints were represented on its programs, ones that ranged across a spectrum from Phil Donahue on the left to Tucker Carlson on the right.

Oh the good ol’ days, when there was a fairly clear line of demarcation between hard news and editorial opinion. That line served a number of important purposes, including a commitment to truth and accuracy in the conveyance of national and international information as well as an adherence to a journalistic code of ethics.

It could be that the good ol’ news days are going back to the future. And the sport of intellectual sparring will make its own separate comeback.

Let’s all stay tuned in whatever new media way is preferred. And may the Truth win out.

Trump’s Free Speech Blueprint

So much has taken place over the last four years that Americans across the board have found objectionable.

One of the starkest examples may be what happened to our constitutional right to free speech.

Way too many individuals on social media found themselves in situations in which they were censored, persecuted, and punished over statements made on forums that were formerly thought to be free-wielding platforms.

Editorial pieces with “unapproved” content were shelved by newspapers and kept from public view.

Cable TV anchors heard whispers from producers, instructing them to change subjects should conversations happen to veer into “taboo” territory.

Public figures, which included political candidates, were vilified for bringing up “inconvenient” truths.

Labels, including “conspiracy theorist,” “extremist,” “wingnut,” and worse, were slapped on many who refused to wear the muzzle, thereby harming their reputations while simultaneously silencing them.

I could go on, but sadly the list seems endless.

Yes, free expression took a major hit, but hope is truly on the horizon, thanks to President elect Donald J. Trump, his close-knit circle, loyal supporters, and slew of newfound like-minded influential allies, including Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard, and Joe Rogan, to name a few.

Uber entrepreneur and “Dark MAGA” creator Musk recently shared a video that had been posted a while back. It features President elect Trump setting forth his plan to safeguard and restore free speech if (and now when) he assumes office.

In the video, he elaborates on the indispensable nature of free speech to our nation’s constitutional values, stating, “If we don’t have free speech, then we just don’t have a free country.”

He offers the additional warning that if freedom of expression were to continue to erode, other indispensable rights would fall like “dominoes.”

President elect Trump’s plans to restore First Amendment freedoms involve a number of common sense steps, including the following:

-The issuing of an executive order banning any federal department or agency from colluding with outside organizations to censor the speech of Americans.

-A prohibition on government money being used to label any domestic speech as “misinformation” or “disinformation.”

-A review of the federal workforce to identify and replace those involved in censoring speech.

-An effort to seek the reform of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which currently provides immunity for tech platforms. Modification would include placing limits on the power of tech companies to arbitrarily restrict lawful speech.

-The stopping of funding organizations that contribute to censorship, including colleges and universities that promote or engage in inappropriate or unlawful censorship.

-The creation of a “Digital Bill of Rights” that would ensure citizens have due process, that users are informed when their content is removed, that individuals are given clear reasons for decisions made, and that the right to appeal is in place, making judicial review and approval a prerequisite for the removal of certain online content.

Such policies will go a long way toward restoring our constitutional right to free speech.

Interestingly, on the day before the 2024 presidential election, two powerful media figures sat down for a conversation about the issues at stake in the then-looming election.

Musk spoke with Rogan.

After praising Musk for his purchase of Twitter, Rogan said, “I’m not exaggerating when I say you changed the course of history.”

The preeminent podcaster was talking about free expression.

Rogan explained that censorship and de-platforming by social media had severely impeded free speech across the U.S. landscape.

“We were headed down a path of unprecedented censorship and narrative control,” Rogan said to Musk.

What he was referring to is the notion that for speech to be free and remain an existing fundamental right, it must be free from government interference and corporate censorship.

The American notion of freedom cannot exist without these guardrails.

In great part, the understanding of the value of free speech to liberty and the commitment to end censorship have led to the formation of a powerful coalition of superheroes from all sides of the political aisle.

This coalition greatly contributed to the electoral earthquake that just occurred in our country.

Get ready to once again be able to agree and/or disagree to our hearts’ content.

And in between discussions and debates, breathe in the sweet air of free speech.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson’s American Values

Mike Johnson is under attack for the religious and cultural beliefs that he holds.

In an appearance on a recent weekend news program, the newly-elected Speaker of the House made the following comments regarding the barrage of negativity that he is having to endure:

“There are entire industries built on taking down, tearing down people like me. I understand that comes with the territory and we’re not fazed by it,” he said.

From the moment he took possession of the Speaker’s gavel, enemies within the media have joined forces with partisan operatives in an attempt to pigeonhole him as an extremist.

Appearing to take things in stride, he stated, “I’ve been labeled all kinds of stuff, but these people don’t know me.”

Johnson is currently serving a fourth term in the U.S. House of Representatives, having secured Louisiana’s fourth congressional district seat with the largest regional margin of victory in over fifty years.

Arriving at his new post with almost 20 years of constitutional law experience under his belt, in his practice he routinely safeguarded the fundamental rights of individuals and businesses.

He characterized his legal career as one that placed him in the position of “defending religious freedom, the sanctity of human life, and biblical values…”

Highly respected by his colleagues, a deeply divided Republican caucus actually came together and succeeded in electing him as new House Speaker.

Even prior to his Speaker post he was held in high esteem by his colleagues. He was one of the most well-liked members of the GOP leadership.

Back in 2022, he had been unanimously elected vice chair of the House Republican Conference for a second time.

The favorable reputation was due in large part to the way in which he comported himself, humble in his demeanor yet true to his principles.

He hadn’t really aspired to the Speaker’s office or ever actually contacted anyone about the position. Rather, his colleagues were the ones that reached out to him and encouraged him to seek the nomination.

He has described himself first and foremost as a Christian, stating the following when he first ran for Congress:

“I’m a committed Christian and my faith informs everything I do.”

A number of journalists appear to be heavily triggered by Johnson’s expressions of faith.

During a 2022 technology panel, which took place at his church in Louisiana, Johnson spoke about a subscription-based computer program that he and his teenage son were using at the time to monitor questionable content.

Media outlets, including Rolling Stone and The New Republic, apparently unearthed the remarks. Attacks were then leveled at the Speaker for his commitment against pornography.

While talking to reporters at the Capitol, he described the negative media blitz as “just the latest attack in a campaign by D.C. insiders on my faith.”

Walking the Christian walk, he explained, “If you truly believe in the Bible’s commands and seek to follow them, it’s impossible to be a hateful person because the greatest command in the Bible is that you love God with everything you have, and you love your neighbor as yourself.”

Those who are going after Johnson are perhaps unintentionally, or perhaps intentionally, forgetting that the beliefs he espouses are the same Judeo-Christian principles that served as foundational pillars during the initial formation of our country.

The Founders were heavily influenced by biblical teachings contained in the Old and New Testaments.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence the profound “self-evident” truth that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

These words spring from the Judeo-Christian credo that all people are created in the image of God.

The Founders recognized Scripture as a prime source of moral and ethical wisdom and incorporated many of its precepts into the U.S. Constitution. The three branches of government, checks and balances on power, the freedom to worship, and equal treatment under the law are but a few.

It is through the application of these inherent values that Johnson desires to implement what he terms “principled governance.”

He summed up the application of his faith in the following manner:

“We’re going to continue to love all people. We’re going to continue to bless even those who persecute us because that’s our worldview and that’s how we operate.”

He added, “Everybody take a breath, give us a chance and you’ll see what principled governance looks like.”

Praying for Speaker Johnson’s success.

And a miracle for America.

Lover of Basketball Phil Jackson Tunes Out

Phil Jackson is the personification of pro basketball. The widely recognized giant of the sport has walked, talked, and breathed the game for most of his life.

Over time he has found himself in the role of player, coach, and executive and has racked up wins with each endeavor.

As a power forward for 12 seasons with the New York Knicks, he won two NBA championships. As the head coach of the Chicago Bulls, he brought home six championships. And during his coaching stint with the Los Angeles Lakers, he secured another five league titles for his team.

Jackson actually holds the all-time highest win-loss percentage of any pro basketball coach. But shockingly, the legendary sports figure now finds professional basketball unwatchable.

This revelation appears to be one more sign that the strange times in which we live are getting stranger by the minute.

Jackson finding basketball unwatchable is like Mark Zuckerberg finding Facebook unusable. Or Taylor Swift finding music un-listenable. Or Meryl Streep finding award shows un-attendable.

In an interview on a podcast called “Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin,” Jackson let it be known that for him tuning in was no longer fun.

“I am not enjoying the game,” he stated, adding, “There’s a whole generation that doesn’t like the game.”

He stopped viewing NBA games in 2020. That was the year of the lockdown, where playoff games had to be played with no fans in attendance, and viewers had to have their eyes assaulted with woke messages displayed on the backs of players’ jerseys.

Jackson noted that the politically charged phrases had taken the place of players’ surnames.

“They had things on their back like, ‘Justice.’ They made a funny thing like, ‘Justice just went to the basket and Equal Opportunity just knocked him down.’ My grandkids thought that was pretty funny to play up those names. …I couldn’t watch that,” he said.

Plenty of sports devotees reacted in a similar manner. Capturing the sentiments of countless others, Jackson called out the NBA for pandering and virtue signaling, and for having picked the wrong venue for political posturing.

“They even had slogans on the floor and the baseline,” Jackson said. “It was trying to cater to an audience or trying to bring a certain audience to the game, and they didn’t know it was turning other people off.”

To emphasize the point that sporting events should be free from political expression, Jackson said, “Politics stays out of the game. It doesn’t need to be there.”

A glimpse into the former coach’s upbringing gives some insight into how he gained the reputation of an individual who makes decisions within a philosophical context. His parents Charles and Elisabeth were both Assemblies of God ministers.

Along with his two brothers and half-sister, Jackson grew up in a remote area of Montana. Dancing and television were not allowed in their home.

He saw his first movie when he was a senior in high school and attended his first dance when he was in college. In those earlier days, it was assumed that he would eventually become a minister.

During his professional coaching days, he became known for using Tex Winter’s triangle offense, along with the implementation of a holistic approach to coaching, which was influenced by Eastern philosophy. Consequently, sports writers dubbed him the “Zen Master.”

He advises players to express their political beliefs outside of the league and off the court. He points to athletes, such as Bill Bradley, who have successfully pursued political careers. As a result of his outspokenness, he has predictably been attacked on social media.

The world of sports is going the way of Hollywood. Sports execs would be wise to heed the Zen Master’s warning, if they don’t want to suffer the same fate.

After all, the scoreboard doesn’t lie, and neither do the ratings.

Culture Is Politics and Vice Versa

rs-143230-rectangle

Andrew Breitbart once famously said, “Politics is downstream from culture.”

What Andrew was conveying is the idea that changes manifested in the culture will likely produce parallel changes in politics.

I myself contend that the country has changed so dramatically, the culture is now inseparable from politics and politics is inseparable from the culture. In other words, culture is politics and politics is culture.

There is no place in which the culture has been kept sequestered from the political, and likewise there is no place in which the political has been kept at arm’s length from the culture. In a very real sense it has taken on an eerily seamless quality.

An additional aspect that has affected the political-cultural relationship is the social media. In its advent, social media literally took the nation by storm. People, though, were too busy living through an immersion experience for the records to fully realize the unprecedented phenomenon it truly was.

Then there is the whole notion of search engines. These are the vehicles that enable us to gain access to the storehouses of information contained on the internet.

We all know that the use of digital devices has exploded. To millions of people, it feels as though these mini-computers are extensions of our bodies. If denied them for any length of time, the psyche may operate as though a piece is somehow missing and experience digital deprivation anxiety in the process.

And so it is that we find ourselves racing headlong into a confluence of digital forces. How were we to know that the power to control digital life itself would ultimately be concentrated in the hands of a few select individuals who run the Big Tech companies?

This year COVID lockdowns and woke content altered the way in which Americans consumed their digital amusement. Some eye-opening ratings help to tell the tale.

Recently, The New York Times took a hiatus from attacking the president long enough to notice that a watershed moment was taking place in the viewing habits of a central medium of our age—television.

While under COVID house arrest, the prime-time viewing audience preferred to watch one network over all of the others. The network of choice was none other than the oft-maligned Fox News.

This constituted a major shift of the culture, so much so that even the Times felt compelled to report it.

It is not surprising that Fox News would be on top when compared to other cable news outlets such as CNN and MSNBC. Fox has dominated this space for 18 years running.

But for Fox News to become the preferred prime-time destination over the increasingly woke broadcast and cable entertainment offerings? This was unexpected and turned out to be downright scary for the left.

“In June and July, Fox News was the highest-rated television channel in the prime-time hours of 8 to 11 p.m. Not just on cable. Not just among news networks. All of television. The average live Fox News viewership in those hours outstripped cable rivals like CNN, MSNBC and ESPN, as well as the broadcast networks ABC, CBS and NBC, according to Nielsen,” the Times reported.

“That three-hour slot is a narrow but significant slice of TV real estate, and it is exceedingly rare for a basic-cable channel to outrank the Big Three broadcasters, which are available in more households and offer a wider variety of programming,” the Times added.

“Even the return of live sports did little to stop the momentum: The Fox News programs hosted by Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity drew more live viewers than competing baseball and basketball games, including a Yankees-Nationals matchup on Opening Day,” the Times said.

Fox News is a place where folks can uniquely experience a pushback against virtually all of the other media outlets. They also get treated to a healthy dose of American exceptionalism.

In the past, the formation of American culture, even when dominated by the left, was still occurring in a free market environment. This is what we know as the American model, the one that allows more innovation and creativity than any other governmental approach ever has.

But now we see signs that our nation is moving towards a new model, one that embraces authoritarianism and seeks to implement a political agenda.

It is an emerging totalitarian model in which elected leaders impose selective lockdowns and arbitrary mandates using public health as a pretext. A model in which the same elected leaders allow, facilitate, and even cheer on criminal, insurrectionist, and terrorist acts. A model that encourages the erasure of national history, heritage, and identity in order to fit a far-left narrative.

Most tragically, it is an emerging totalitarian model that looks more like the Chinese communist system of governance than anything previously associated with the United States of America.

The Agenda-laden Reboot of ‘Party of Five’

image

That Hollywood would be walking hand-in-hand with the Democratic Party in an effort to shape the mindset of the culture-at-large is nothing new.

However, the idea that entertainment products would have morphed into super-sized mallets that would then be used to hammer left-wing agendas into folks’ heads is.

The routine insertion into entertainment content by Hollywood of “woke” themes and characters is clearly illustrated in a highly altered supposed reboot of a previous 1990’s television show, “Party of Five.”

The original “Party of Five” ran from 1994 to 2000 and starred Neve Campbell, Scott Wolf, Matthew Fox, and Lacey Chabert. The series dealt with the Salinger family’s five children, who were forced to fend for themselves after their parents were killed in an accident by a drunk driver.

Hollywood’s updated version, which airs on the Disney-owned cable network Freeform, has none of the original characters and is missing a majority of the themes that were present in the initial “Party of Five.”

The redesigned show features a Mexican family in which sibling children are forced into orphan-hood when their mom and dad are deported.

In reality, the series is not actually a reboot but rather a radical re-imagining that utilizes one of the favorite memes of the left.

The original show’s setting was San Francisco, and it had a run of six seasons. It aired on Fox and helped to launch the careers of its cast, including one particular co-star, Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Despite its having been on the air more than two decades ago, the original show features themes that to this day continue to resonate with viewers.

Even though the series was categorized as one designed to attract teens, the issues with which the Salinger family had to deal included a character’s battle with cancer, another character’s battle with alcoholism, a young woman who was a victim of domestic violence, and naturally the show’s primary focus of the children being minus parental figures.

Because the series had relatively low ratings in its first and second seasons, the speculation at the time was that it might not be renewed. However, after it won the 1996 Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series in the drama category, its ratings and popularity grew for most of the remainder of the show.

Original creators Chris Keyser and Amy Lippman are spearheading the storytelling in the revised version, although the two showrunners have seen fit to abandon the original characters and plot line.

Lippman told The Associated Press that she and Keyser had turned down previous offers to bring the show back over concerns that they did not want to incorporate the same story line with new actors. But Lippman also indicated that the pair had changed their minds after reading front-page stories about children being separated from their parents.

“We have told this story before but it was imaginary,” Lippman said. “Now it’s actually a story that is playing out all over the country.”

“In the previous show, we didn’t need to be specific to a culture or a political climate,” Lippman added. “This family is very concerned about [its] status.”

Lippman noted that the show hired a mostly Latino writing staff.

A trailer was recently released that spotlights the deportation and immigration story line featuring five Hispanic children who struggle to survive following their parents’ deportation to Mexico.

The trailer shows the parents being separated from their children, opening with an inflammatory scene that shows the family patriarch being asked for his papers and being led out of a restaurant by government law enforcement.

Although the first episode’s airing has yet to be announced, reports indicate that it will hit the airwaves in late 2019, just in time for the pre-election mind manipulation of the public.

Oscars Ratings Woes Continue

91st Annual Academy Awards, Show, Los Angeles, USA - 24 Feb 2019

This year’s Oscars should have been a win for Hollywood, but trouble still follows Hollywood’s once prestigious annual event.

According to preliminary figures, ratings for the 91st Academy Awards were up slightly. Unfortunately, it is not enough to assuage anxiety over the awards show’s downward trend.

The second host-less Academy Awards ended up having the second-smallest audience in Oscar history. Audience size for this year was 28 million, according to the calculations of The Hollywood Reporter. This figure is up about 6 percent over the disastrous Kimmel-hosted show’s preliminary ratings of the previous year. Viewer-ship size was based on a 20.1 rating/33 share in metered-market households.

In 2018 box-office revenues seemed to have ticked up, and a lot of folks who were watching this year’s show had actually seen three of the Best Picture nominees: “Black Panther,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” and “A Star is Born.” “Panther” took in a haul of more than $700 million in domestic gross, and “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “A Star is Born” each earned over $200 million. The success of the cinematic trio should have been enough to garner a larger audience than had been seen in the past few years.

It has been downright gloomy for those following the trend in ratings for the Academy Awards show. The overall concern over whether the Oscars were losing their allure was palpable. Last year’s show, which was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, fell double digits from the previous year, sinking to the lowest ratings level for the show ever.

Although the ratings of all awards shows have been on the decline, Disney-owned ABC had to have been alarmed when it learned that viewer-ship for the 2018 Oscar show had dropped 25 percent in the key 18 to 49 demographic.

This year the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences tried a number of different things to give the sagging ratings a jumpstart. It released a series of proposals, all of which received significant backlash with the end result being the same – a cave by the Academy at the first sign of pushback.

In late 2018, the Academy came up with an idea for a new category that would grant awards to “popular” films. The thinking was to try and include nominees and winners that movie fans simply adored, thereby creating more buzz and bringing in more viewers. The blowback by film artists of all types was fierce, and the Academy relented.

The Academy tried picking a popular host that might prove to be a ratings magnet. It reached out to the highest paid actor currently in the industry, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. However, The Rock’s shooting schedule got in the way so the pick was a no-go.

Oscar leadership then turned to another popular Hollywood figure, Kevin Hart. The attempt to secure the mega-successful comedic actor turned into a PR debacle for the Academy. Hart had a decade-old tweet history that came back to haunt him. Once again the leadership couldn’t handle the flack that it received. CEO Dawn Hudson reportedly telephoned Hart to ask him to apologize for his past Twitter posts. This infuriated Hart, and he ended up withdrawing from the hosting gig, leading to the decision to broadcast a host-less telecast for the first time since 1989.

Then there was the time issue. For years, ABC-Disney had been pleading with the Academy to shorten the length of the Oscar telecast. The Academy leadership came up with an arrangement to abbreviate the normally long-winded telecast by awarding four of the ceremony’s prizes during the commercial breaks and then craftily editing the award winners into a later show slot.

Although the Academy believed that consensus for the plan could be developed by showing representatives from various branches a video demonstration of the newly conceived format, a high profile rebellion caused the Academy to reverse itself. Major creative players in movies, which included Spike Lee, Martin Scorsese, and Quentin Tarantino, signed an open letter condemning the idea. A few short days later the Academy melted.

Producers of this year’s show were able to cut 35 minutes from the overall length, when compared to the previous year. This was done by eliminating montages and mid-telecast comedy. However, the telecast still ended up being about 3 hours and 20 minutes long.

A December 2018 Morning Consult/The Hollywood Reporter survey found that ABC and the Academy were correct in their attempt to shorten the Oscar telecast. Forty-eight percent of adults said the Oscars telecast was too long.

A close second in annoyance terms to the overly long airtime of the Oscar show is the political content that is being pushed by Hollywood celebrities. The poll indicates that 39 percent of adults are less likely to watch awards shows when celebrities express their political views, and the number rises to 59 percent when viewers self-identify as Republicans.

Reportedly, in addition to the perpetually failing effort to shorten the duration of acceptance speeches at the Oscars, the Academy and producers of the telecast were apparently working hard behind the scenes to convince presenters and recipients of the awards to leave their politics at home.

Well, it didn’t work. Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and Maya Rudolph, the first group of presenters at the awards show, joked about the proposed “popular” film category, and apparently Rudolph could not restrain herself from tossing a political barb into her intro punch line.

“We are not your hosts,” Fey was quick to explain. Rudolph interrupted saying, “So just a quick update in case you’re confused. There is no host tonight, there will be no popular movie category and Mexico is not paying for the wall.”

Other presenters were quick to follow suit. While introducing the Best Foreign Language Film winner, actor Javier Bardem, who delivered his remarks in Spanish, took a veiled swipe at President Trump’s border security measures.

ABC translated Bardem’s speech in the following way: “There are no borders or walls that can restrain ingenuity or talent. In any region of any continent, there are always great stories that move us. And tonight, we celebrate the excellence and importance of the cultures and languages of different countries.”

Following Bardem’s comments, comedian Keegan Michael Key placed an open umbrella on the ground, imitating the president’s actions in 2018 prior to boarding Air Force One.

During his acceptance speech for Best Adapted Screenplay, director Spike Lee jumped into campaign mode in making a pitch for the 2020 presidential election, saying, “Let’s make the right choice, let’s be on the right side of history.”

“The 2020 election is right around the corner,” Lee said.