"In the most eye-popping moment of the exchange, Mr. Watters asked if Dr. El-Sayed believed it was OK 'for a parent to slash his kid’s ding-a-ling off'..."

"... referring to transition surgeries for minors. Dr. El-Sayed responded by asking if Mr. Watters was circumcised. 'Uh, yeah, but that’s a personal question, doctor,' Mr. Watters responded, laughing, before contending that 'circumcision’s different than castration.' Dr. El-Sayed said that he believed the government should not tell Americans what health care procedures they could undergo, but he did not directly say whether he approved of transition surgeries. The interview showed the strategy Dr. El-Sayed is adopting as Mr. Rogers seeks to paint him as a radical leftist who is out of touch with Michigan voters. The Democratic nominee’s approach is to cast 'culture-war' issues as a distraction from the everyday problems Americans face, like rising costs and worries about health care...."

From "El-Sayed Joins Fox News for Some Light Verbal Combat and a Pitch to Republicans/In a smiling yet tense interview, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Michigan, argued that his Republican critics were using culture-war issues to distract from Americans’ economic concerns" (NYT gift link).

"Mr. Rogers" = Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate.

Trump answers the question "Did the CIA tell you that Ayatollah Jr. is gay?"

"They did say that. I think a lot of people are saying that, which puts him off to a bad start in that particular country. I sort of have to smile to myself when I see people trying to defend the Palestinian regime for women — women for Palestine — but they kill women if... you don't wear a certain cloth all over your face, you have no chance of living. When I look at gays for Palestine  — but they kill gays. The kill 'em instantly. They throw 'em off buildings. And I'm saying, who are the gays for Palestine? They have a significant amount of gays for Palestine. Now... you know, I did very well with the gay vote, okay? I even played the gay national anthem as my walk-off, okay? And I think it probably helped me, but I did great. No Republican has ever gotten the gay vote like I did and I'm very proud of it, I think it's great. Perhaps it is because I'm from New York City, I don't know. But the gay national anthem was my walk-off and I think it probably — but think of it, gays for Palestine, but they kill gays in Palestine. So when they hear that I think probably we can talk about it but it shouldn't be too hard."

If you like Trump answers that contain miscellaneous material, this episode of "The Five" is a feast. If Trump's weave makes you anxious/angry/insane, buckle in.

I wonder: Rewrite that headline.

If you puzzle: A command is not a wondering, you see my problem — one of my problems — with the headline "Why hasn't Sam Bankman-Fried already been forced back to the US for FTX fiasco, critics wonder: 'Lock him up'/SBF's father, Joseph Bankman, notably helped Sen. Elizabeth Warren draft tax legislation." (Fox News).

1. Whether you're a "critic" or not, you can't "wonder" "Lock him up." You might wonder why he's not locked up. But you can't wonder an imperative.

2. I guess you could ignore the colon — which indicates that what the critics wonder is "Lock him up." Then you could see the critics as wondering why SBF hasn't been "forced back to the US." That is something that can be wondered. A question mark might help.

3. I find it hard to believe anyone is wondering that. There are no charges against SBF — not yet. I found that article because I was googling to see if SBF was actively fleeing from legal consequences. Isn't that what most of us would expect him to do — what we would do under the circumstances?

4. And that subheadline! What's the point of that if not to insinuate that SBF has political connections that are the reason he's not already extradited and locked up? It's such a weak insinuation. SBF's father is eminent enough to have some connection to drafting a tax bill, and — if you go to the link in the article — you'll see it was just about simplifying tax filing.

5. If you go on to read the article, you'll see it's not really about what "critics," plural, are saying. It's just about what Judge Jeanine Pirro said on Fox News, on "The Five." And Jesse Watters "agreed."

6. Here's something to wonder: Why is Fox News so trashy?

"I thought these migrants were DREAMers that were going to go to college to become doctors. Now, Nancy just wants them to work in the fields...."

"The illegals are viewed as servants by the Democrats. They’re opening the border for the help. These aren’t asylum seekers. These are just waiters and field hands for a party that fought a civil war to keep their slaves."

Said Jesse Watters, quoted in "Jesse Watters Says Democrats Leaving Border Open for Post-Civil War ‘Servants’, Migrants are ‘Waiters and Field Hands’Jesse Watters Says Democrats Leaving Border Open for Post-Civil War ‘Servants’, Migrants are ‘Waiters and Field Hands’" (Mediaite).

Watters was riffing on something Nancy Pelosi said the other day — which we talked about here — "We have a shortage of workers in our country, and you see even in Florida, some of the farmers and the growers saying, ‘Why are you shipping these immigrants up north? We need them to pick the crops down here.'"

Watters's rhetoric would have more power if he weren't stuck with calling the border-crossers "the illegals" —  "The illegals are viewed as servants by the Democrats."

I'm waiting for a Democrat to make the equivalently awkward remark "The servants are viewed as illegals by the Democrats."

Either humanize them or don't. But don't expect me to believe you really care about people who are human only when it suits your needs. Ironically, that's exactly Watters's point about Nancy and the Democrats.

"If it's true they are saying anti-government right-wing groups or domestic extremist groups are THE greatest threat to national security, which is what Biden and the intelligence community are saying..."

"... greater than ISIS or al Qaeda or China or Russia, why do they need to manufacture a plot — and put in people's heads — the idea let's go kidnap Governor Whitmer? There should be tons of plots that they are detecting? That leads to the question people on your network and others have asked to the horror of the liberal sector of the corporate media, which is: What did the FBI know about the planning of the January 6 attack? How embedded were they in these groups? Because what happens is when these kinds of attacks happen, the FBI and the security state seize on them to say See? there are grave dangers, we need more money, more power, more surveillance authorities in order to keep you safe. And so if they are the ones driving it, it leads to the question of what those motives are."

Says Glenn Greenwald talking to Fox New's Jesse Watters. Video at Real Clear Politics, with a transcript that I've touched up based on the video.