Earhardt Empathy, Netflix Stonks, Libs of TikTok, Hawk

Colby Hall makes the case:

The hosts of Fox & Friends had a civil yet spirited debate over Jen Psaki’s raw emotional reaction to what she deems to be anti-LGTBQ+ bills that could lead to bullying. Pete Hegseth literally laughed mockingly at Psaki’s tears, but Ainsley Earhardt quickly came to the Press Secretary’s defense.

Fox & Friends aired a portion of a clip of Psaki and Jessica Yellin discussing a spate of bills designed to limit gender-based curriculum to kindergarten to third-grade kids in Florida.

Psaki condemned the bills extensively, growing emotional over the impact of the legislation on children.

The clip was followed by Hegseth channeling his inner Nelson Muntz with a sharp “Ha!” that some may have heard as pretty bullying in tone.

Unlike his cohosts, Hegseth played the part of, well, the much harsher critic of Psaki’s open empathy, smirking in his uniquely self-satisfied way. “Totally mischaracterizes the bill, utterly emotional about something that she has mischaracterized and saying it’s a wedge issue.”

But leave it to Earhardt to defend Psaki's empathy, saying “The flip side is she says we don’t want to hurt our kids and and we don’t want bullying. No one wants that, no one wants children to be hurt.

“People in Florida who support this bill are saying ‘she’s exactly right,'” Earhardt explained. “We don’t want that. We want them to live in butterflies and rainbows, as long as they can.”

Earhardt was an antidote to the insensitivity on display in the segment. Real the full column and watch the clip here.

News broke on Wednesday that streaming giant Netflix is bleeding subscribers - 200k last quarter - for the first time in over 10 years. Shares plummeted over 25% to start the day and no good news followed as CEO Reed Hastings became the subject of articles, rants, and investor concerns.

In a recent earnings call, Hastings floated the idea of introducing advertisements into content, something Netflix has avoided but other streamers have embraced. The company needs to “monetize sharing,” he said, referencing the password sharing among consumers.

“Technology is beyond their control,” said CNBC's Jim Cramer mockingly on Squawk on the Street .joining the critical chorus. He tore into Hasting and Netflix for the “disjointed conference call” from a “company that’s lost its way.”

“They have not monetized 500 million viewers. What are they thinking? We won’t watch an ad to see who wins in Squid Game?” Cramer said at one point, referencing the popular Netflix miniseries. The streamer has plenty of content, Cramer theorized, but they are mostly one-off releases that are quickly binged and then forgotten by consumers.

Cramer called the earnings call from Hastings "arrogant." But he was far from the only critic calling out the company and its CEO.

Billionaire Elon Musk created his own mini-storm over Netflix, and generated a multiply trending topic in the process, when he said that "woke mind virus" is making the service's original programming "unwatchable."

But it doesn't take a catchphrase like that for it to be a bad day for Netflix and Hastings; not with words like "plunge" and "nosedive" filling out headlines. Ouch.