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Tucker Carlson has always been a pompous windbag. Even worse, he used to be a pompous windbag with a bow tie. While his tendency toward bloviation might seem like a prerequisite for hosting a show on Fox News, there was a time—from 2000 to 2005—when Carlson was employed by CNN. From the very beginning, it was clear that the pairing was not meant to be. But it took a hero named Jon Stewart to make this painfully obvious to the world (and the news network’s powers-that-be).

Recently, a short clip of Stewart’s infamous 2004 appearance on the Carlson-co-hosted Crossfire has been making the social media rounds and fans can’t get enough of the then-host of The Daily Show’s utter evisceration of Carlson—and his bow tie.

This is incredible.pic.twitter.com/WUbQGacpQT

— Keith Edwards (@keithedwards) May 4, 2021

Though Stewart was on the show presumably to promote his new book, America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction, it was clear that he had other plans. Namely: To ask Carlson and his co-host Paul Begala to use their platform to encourage real conversations with politicians and to speak for the American people instead of being “partisan hacks.” Carlson’s response? To reference Stewart’s recent interview with then-presidential candidate John Kerry and call him a “suck-up.”

Carlson did attempt to backtrack a little and assure Stewart that he and Begala were there “to love you, not confront you. We’re here to be nice.” But Stewart wasn’t having any of it. Even if Carlson was there to be nice, Stewart was not: “I’m here to confront you, because we need help from the media and they’re hurting us… It’s hurting America. Here is what I wanted to tell you guys: Stop. You have a responsibility to the public discourse, and you fail miserably.”

In addition to the clip, you can watch the full interview above—or read the full transcript from the show here.

There’s also an interesting postscript to this story: Many media insiders have pointed to Stewart’s interview, which aired on October 15, 2004, as a key factor in Carlson’s contract with CNN not being renewed. When that was announced less than two months later, Carlson immediately went on the defensive. Oddly, he used much of what Stewart himself had been saying to explain his departure from the network:

“I resigned from Crossfire in April [2004], many months before Jon Stewart came on our show, because I didn’t like the partisanship, and I thought in some ways it was kind of a pointless conversation… each side coming out, you know, ‘Here’s my argument,’ and no one listening to anyone else. [CNN] was a frustrating place to work.”

Kind of interesting to see people discover and resdicover this moment from (gasp) nearly 20 years ago.

(Via Keith Edwards)

If you’re into food TikTok at all, you’ve seen it — dried chilis rapidly de-seeded and chopped, boiled, blended with more spices, and combined with tender chunks of savory meat and onion stewed to perfection, forming a bubbling, almost orange broth so appetizing you can smell it through the screen. Next, the meat is removed, shredded, and placed atop a tortilla that has been dipped in the savory stew’s abundant juices, covered in cheese, thrown on the grill, and folded in half, only to be dipped back into the broth between bites. A delectable bit of food porn if ever there was one.

This is the culinary marvel known as birria tacos. Or, more accurately, quesabirria. A French dip quesadilla of sorts.

The dish looks so appetizing that it’s inspired a whole wave of fusion weirdness — from birria waffles to birria pizza. But while I’m happy to see the birria love buzzing around the internet, I do feel compelled to mention that this isn’t exactly a new dish. For me, growing up in Southern California in a Mexican family, it’s always just been birria, a beef chuck stew reserved for the coldest winter days with a comforting aroma that seems to slip right through the walls of the house. For other Mexicans, it might be birria de chivo, made with goat and reserved for special occasions like a wedding. In the streets of Tijuana, it’s quesabirria, rapidly prepared street food that is grilled on site with speed and efficiency that puts every TikTok version to shame.

To get the rundown on the hottest new food “trend” and why it’s resonating so strongly with an online audience of food lovers right now, we linked up with Gustavo Arrellano, journalist and author of Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America. In our brief phone chat, Arrellano broke down the history of Mexican food trends in America, revealed what great birria ought to taste like, and unloaded some thoughts on how we can truly help the Mexican American food community going forward in a post-Covid world.

Why do you think birria has taken off on social media over the past year?

It hasn’t taken off in the last year. It’s been a phenomenon in Southern California for at least five years! It really started to slowly get national about 2019, before COVID and then in 2020. It just follows the same trajectory that Mexican food in the United States has always followed and I write this in my book, Taco USA. Every decade it seems that something lowercase “new” with Mexican food is sweeping across the country. In The 1890s, it was chili — what we now know in chili dogs, chili burgers and tamales. In the 1980s, it was fajitas. In the 1970s and 60s, it was the margarita.

After the great recession, it was taco trucks, food trucks. Now it just happens to be birria.

Something a lot of people don’t seem to understand about Mexican food is that it’s highly regional. I always hear people say ridiculous things like “in Mexico, they don’t do this or they don’t do that.” But it’s more varied than that. I’ve always been told birria is more of a Jalisco thing. What is it to you?

Well, birria to me is something I’ve grown up with my entire life, except with de res, birria de res [beef]. My family’s from Zacatecas which borders Mexico. So I’ve been eating birria — goats stew is most famous from Jalisco, with res it’s most famous from Zacatecas. So when people started telling me, “Oh, it’s a trend, it’s a new food.” I’m like, what the hell are you talking about? I’ve been eating birria de res my entire life, how can something I’ve eaten my entire life be a trend?

Have you seen any bastardizations of the recipe that have shocked you? Though, if i remember right it’s a fairly simple recipe.

Don’t dismiss birria as a simple recipe! There’s this idea in Mexican food, “Oh it’s simple peasant food.” No, no, no, no. Even the best refried beans take talent. But when it comes to these bastardizations, as some people call it and I have others peers who say, “Oh, you could only eat it in a certain way.” Even in tacos, “that’s not how you really eat it.” For me. If it’s good, why not?

Again, having eaten birria my entire life, I’m not running out of my house to try birria ramen or birria pizza, or birria hamburgers or whatnot. But hey, if I have a chance to eat it, I’ll try it. Sure. But I’m not going out to do so. So I’m not going to say I’ve tried these places, but for me, if it’s good, why not? If people enjoy birria on pizza or birria with ramen, cool. God bless them for that.

Do you have a favorite birria spot?

Well, if it’s to go, there’s a place called El Cabrito which is here in the city of Santa Ana. That’s birria de chivo. If you want birria de res, that’s going to be a spot, it’s also in Santa Ana, but also in LA and El Monte called Burritos La Palma, and they’re the ones who really kicked off the whole birria de res trend. They’re from the same part of Zacatecas where my family’s from Jerez, Zacatecas. The way they serve their birria de res, is just the way I ate it growing up.

For someone who has never had birria de res, what makes it so good?

The meat has to be stringy and soft. It can’t be too tough — not tough, but it can’t have the texture like say carne asada or chicken, but it has to have some texture. It can’t be just a glop of meat. The broth can’t be oily. You have some of this birria de res, it’s completely oily. It’s disgusting. Traditionally, birria comes with salsa macha, but it used to be called salsa de setas, like oil salsa. You put that for the flavor, for the spice, but you can also eat it straight up.

It has to have an enveloping taste, comforting. Birria is best eaten when it’s cold outside cause it warms you up. It has to be a little bit spicy — enough so you know that there are chiles in there — but it cannot be spicy so that it burns you. Not like, “Oh my God, this is too spicy.” It can never get to that, because it’s up to the eater to decide, “How much spice am I going to eat there?”

So it has to be comforting above all, has to have that flavor, more chili flavor than chili spice. You have to put the onions. I think the onions are key. Some people put cilantro, I’m not a big cilantro person. So I don’t, but don’t put oregano, oregano is more for pozole. You put in a squirt of lime that gives it a brightness with the acidity. Then that’s when you put in the salsa.

For birria, I like to put serranos, you chop up some serranos and you throw them in there, you mix it all up. It’s all super good.

It’s interesting that you talk about the comfort food aspect because I feel like the social media interest might have sprung out of the pandemic in terms of people having more time to kind of sit and roast meat and just needing that kind of external comfort.

Yes, you’re seeing more of it on social media because if you want to play that game, it’s a social media star because it seems people love to put messy food on social media. You split the hamburger in half and you see all the meat, you split the burrito in half — I personally find those pictures disgusting. There’s nothing appealing to me about that. Also, you have the stained paper or whatever and I’ll be honest, I’m guilty of that. I’ve stained my reporter’s notebooks with birria or chile when I’m eating. So I’ll admit to that.

But in that sense, especially if you’ve never eaten that food and you see it for the first time, of course, it’s going to be a trend, but it’s important to note that birria de res is not an invention. It’s not something that people quote-unquote “discovered.” Basically people like Columbus — and I’m adding Mexicans to this by the way, not just white people — that all of a sudden realized, “oh my God, birria, it’s such a cool deal. It will be perfect for Instagram or whatnot,” but this is something that Mexicans in Southern California have been eating for 40 years.

Pivoting a little, how do you think we can best support Mexican restaurants in the post-COVID age? There’s already obviously a financial strain on every restaurant, but Mexican food, in particular, has always kind of been undervalued.

Go there. Go eat at those restaurants. Simple as that. Go figure out which one’s going to be most to your palate and go spend money and tip well and go again. And if you like it, go take your friends, get take out. I don’t think there’s anything unique to Mexican restaurants that I wouldn’t say the same about the food industry in general. I’m not going to say, “don’t go to white-owned Mexican restaurants.” I think that’s stupid. Go to the places that you like!

I could tell you Mexican restaurants where the food’s horrible. Should you support them? Well maybe. Maybe you want to contribute to a GoFundMe account, but you shouldn’t feel forced into eating something as a charity case. At that point, just leave them some money. But if there’s a place that you like, go! Go and support and support some more.

I wanted to get your take on this. I was looking at the local prices of birria tacos near me, and it’s something like $1.99 or something for a plate of multiple
tacos.

Wow!

It makes me think of this Anthony Bourdain quote that I want to read you really quickly. He said, “Americans love Mexican food. We consume nachos, tacos, burritos, tortillas, enchiladas, tamales, and anything resembling Mexican in enormous quantities. We love Mexican beverages, happily knocking back huge amounts of tequila, mezcal, Mexican beer. We love Mexican people. We employ a lot of them… We demand that Mexicans cook a large percentage of the food we eat, grow the ingredients we need to make that food, clean our houses, mow our lawns, wash our dishes, and look after our children. As any chef will tell you, our entire service economy, the restaurant business, as we know it in most American cities would collapse overnight without Mexican workers.”

As the pandemic ends and we enter the post-Trump era, what does the food industry need to do better in regards to Mexican food?

I think the issue is not so much with Mexican food, but rather the Mexicans that work in the food industry, they’re the ones who are in the back of the kitchen. They’re the ones who are not getting the wages that they deserve. They’re the ones who are getting exploited more often than not. They’re the ones who are picking the crops in the field. They’re the ones who are butchering the animals that we eat. If you really want to be “woke,” when it comes to Mexicans, don’t just worry about the food, worry about the entire damn ecosystem that makes food in the United States.

And in that sense, advocate for them. Advocate for better wages. Advocate for amnesty. Advocate for everything that needs to be done to help make the food world a more equitable place. Not just in what you eat but all across the board from the beginning all the way until the end.

A lot of people do not like DJ Khaled. That’s not a controversial statement; it’s as close to being outright fact as anything in our post-truth, “fake news” saturated modern world. But on Khaled’s glitzy new album, Khaled Khaled, he tries hard to give us reasons to appreciate his presence. One of those attempts is the latest in a series of ultra-rare occurrences in hip-hop that I’m almost shocked he didn’t try to have minted as an NFT first: A collaboration between erstwhile foes Jay-Z and Nas on the song “Sorry Not Sorry.”

These are a rare animal indeed, the rap equivalent of Halley’s Comet. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the two veteran rappers have seemed reluctant to join forces over the years. After all, some truly nasty things were said during their early 2000s war of words that took nearly a decade more to address and get over — if they were ever truly able to actually get over them. Between their cult-favorite status, continued longevity, popularity, and commercial viability over the last 30 years, and the animosity that once simmered between them, their team-ups are infrequent events that would make most Marvel execs salivate.

Unfortunately, they’ve also never truly lived up to their hype, as the actual products have nearly always fallen well short of their outsized expectations. Again, I’m not trying to be controversial here; you could almost sense the disappointment of long-time fans in their Twitter reactions the night of the album’s release. Not even Khaled’s motivational speaker energy could liven up the proceedings. Nas and Jay-Z’s verses sound like they come from two different songs; although Jay’s verse is light and bouncy, Nas seems almost bored by his own money talk as he brags about getting in on cryptocurrency early (tech bro rap has a very limited audience, as it’s a lot like trying to have a conversation with a tech bro).

The reasons behind this are likely myriad, from lack of chemistry between the collaborators (the people want Rae-and-Ghost-level verse trading, but Nas really only has that with AZ while Jay’s last real back-and-forth was with Kanye West on “Otis”) to perhaps some lingering tension between the two. Fans have noticed Jay’s unfortunate tendency to step on Nas’s release dates, Nas refuses to punch up his verses after hearing Jay’s contributions, and their subject matter has been, after everything the two have been through together, very shallow and empty, more flash than substance.

It’s been a problem throughout each of their prior collaborations — two on their own, and one with Ludacris — that bears some looking into. So, here’s a timeline of their collaborations, beginning at the beef, as we try to get to the bottom of why these two just can’t seem to find their groove.

“Takeover”/”Ether”/”Supa Ugly”

The only time Nas washed Jay came during their actual battle in 2001. Countless histories have been written already but Nas was the consensus winner even if there are plenty of Jay-Z diehards who’ll take their “Takeover was better” beliefs to the grave (guilty). While “Takeover” kicked things off with a flurry of bars undermining Nas’s newly adopted mafioso image at the time, as well as poking at the declining public perception of his music’s quality, Nas’s schoolyard taunts got personal, ratcheting the excitement up several more notches. Unfortunately, it was Jay who blew a gasket, revealing his hurt feelings by sharing the “Supa Ugly” freestyle to radio and later apologizing after being admonished by his mom.

“Black Republican”

In 2006, just two months after Jay-Z’s “I Declare War” concert which saw the two former foes share the stage for the first time since the extremely early ’90s — possibly ever — Nas and Jay delivered their first collaboration on Nas’s eighth album Hip Hop Is Dead. It should have been a historic moment — certainly, it came with an epic beat. But it was also bogged down by its focus on tax brackets and the relative disparity between the two performances. The normally laid-back Jay sounds energetic, going for broke with rhyme schemes deadset on proving he could hang with the more “lyrical” Nas, who took the opportunity to rap an overly-smooth verse that completely ignores the monumental vibe of the beat or the moment.

“Success”

A year later, Nas would return the favor, appearing on Jay-Z’s 2007 movie companion album American Gangster. This time, the beat was an airy production by No I.D. that had a lot of potential but becomes overwhelming after a few repetitions. Again, the unrelatable subject matter weighs on the proceedings, but this time, the two reverse roles. Jay delivers a lethargic pair of verses that comes across as careless (Jay hollering “Let that b*tch breathe” when he was barely jogging wasn’t the flex he thought, making him look out of shape after a light jog), while Nas yanks out the brakes for an overly wordy contribution that could have used a lighter touch.

“I Do It For Hip-Hop” (with Ludacris)

This is the closest the two have come to a balance on one of their collaborations, probably because of Ludacris’s leavening influence. His boisterous, megaphone flow elevates the energy of the downtempo track, although the verse sequence means the coasting that Jay and Nas do here resembles a hang glider aimed at a cliff. They don’t quite crash; Jay finds his sense of humor again and Nas displays some timely self-awareness, pulling things up just in time to stick the landing. What works is getting the two out of their “emotionless rich guy” schtick. While too much nostalgia can get treacly, there’s just enough of it here to transport listeners back to blocks where the New Yorkers owned their crafts, more concerned with accessible endeavors.

“Sorry Not Sorry”

One thing this track does right: pairing that dreamy, glittering beat with James Fauntleroy and Beyonce vocals — pardon, Harmonies By The Hive vocals — and finding a smooth lane that reflects the elegance and opulence the two rappers try to convey. But again, it all sounds kind of perfunctory; they’re just listing brags, checking off lists, barely trying to impress, and certainly not trying to compete. Oh, and Nas calls himself “Cryptocurrency Scarface,” which doesn’t call to mind a swaggering rap titan so much as a nerdy, underachieving undergrad, trying way too hard to shed his dorky high school image — think Jesse Eisenberg’s portrayal of Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network. Jay’s verse is clever and smooth and makes you wonder why Rick Ross wasn’t paired with him instead because this is very “Maybach Music” territory… it just turns out Jay and Nas aren’t the right Lewis and Clark to explore it.

Clearly, mellower beats are the way to go, but it seems like the two should be more collaborative in their approach if they really want to make people care about their collaborations. As it stands, it feels like they’re writing their verses to different beats in separate rooms and slapping them together. Considering the rarity of their alliances, fans deserve more than this slapdash approach. I’m not saying they have to write each other’s bars, but the joy evident in their collabs with other artists is always lacking when they get together. Maybe they can never truly get past what Jay said about Nas’s baby seat or Nas comparing Jay-Z to Joe Camel, or maybe the hype will simply always overwhelm the final product. But considering the reputations and skill levels involved, perhaps it’s just about finding the right person to put it all together. Khaled came close, maybe another producer will be the one to pull it off.

Khaled Khaled is out now via Epic Records. Get it here.

The Portland Trail Blazers have been led by Terry Stotts since the 2012 season, and in that time, the team has won a whole lot of games and been a mainstay in the Western Conference playoff picture. Despite this, Portland has struggled to make the jump from a consistently very good team to one of the best teams in the Western Conference, and as a result, a new report in The Athletic indicates that Stotts’ time with the team could come to an end sometime soon.

Sam Amick and Shams Charania took the temperature of a number of potential coaching vacancies around the league, and started things off by saying that the expectation is that Stotts will be gone after this season. There is, however, one chance for him to save his job: “If Stotts can’t ‘pull a rabbit out of his hat’ with a playoff miracle of sorts, as one source put it, the Blazers are expected to opt for a new coaching voice,” they wrote.

As for where the Blazers are expected to turn next, the situation was compared to how another team under this ownership group’s umbrella, the Seattle Seahawks, brought in Pete Carroll years ago to get the team over the hump and win a Super Bowl. The list of names currently linked to the job includes a mix of people with coaching experience and individuals who would take over a team for the first time.

Among the potential coaching candidates for the Trail Blazers, sources say: Lakers assistant Jason Kidd, Hawks interim coach Nate McMillan, 76ers assistant Dave Joerger, Clippers assistant Chauncey Billups and Spurs vice president of basketball operations Brent Barry.

Portland sits 36-29 on the season and are in seventh place in the Western Conference. The team is a game back of the 5-seed, though, and has a path to avoid the play-in tournament.

While Zack Snyder missed out on a theatrical debut for his director’s cut of Justice League due to the pandemic, his latest passion project is faring much better. In a surprising move from Netflix, the streaming giant is releasing Army of the Dead in theaters a full week before it makes its Netflix debut. The zombie heist film will have an exclusive theatrical run starting May 14 and will mark Netflix’s first stab at a large scale cinematic release. Via Variety:

Notably, Cinemark, one of the country’s biggest theater chains, has agreed to screen the movie. It is booked at 200 Cinemark locations, making “Army of the Dead” the first Netflix film to score a wide release at a major theater chain. The movie will play at roughly 600 theaters in total, including iPic, Landmark, Alamo Drafthouse, Harkins and Cinépolis. Other major circuits, specifically AMC and Regal, will not be offering the film.

Of course, with all good news, there’s always a bit of bad. During a recent interview with The Sunday Times, Snyder revealed that Army of the Dead will be noticeably lacking in zombie penis. “We had a sequence where one of the male strippers had a huge penis with a bite taken out of it,” Snyder said. “We thought that was too much.”

While the film has been hotly anticipated after dropping a badass trailer featuring a zombie tiger, the big question now is whether horror audiences will accept a zombie film that doesn’t feature undead, full-frontal nudity. It’s a gamble to be sure.

(Via Variety)

Britney Spears is still in the midst of a legal battle surrounding her court-appointed conservatorship, a case that has seen an uptick in public scrutiny following the Framing Britney Spears documentary. While fans have been calling for an end to her conservatorship, the singer herself has reported she’s happy with the arrangement — for the most part.

Last week, it was reported that Spears has asked to meet with a judge to personally speak about her legal situation. Fans speculated what the singer planned to speak about, but new details from TMZ unveils Spears’ plan to ask for her father to be removed as her co-conservator. Spears has previously aired her grievances with how her father handles her business. She’s even stated that she refuses to perform until her dad is removed as her conservator. TMZ states Spears and her father currently aren’t on speaking terms and the singer doesn’t trust of some people he’s brought to her team.

Spears’ other co-conservator is Jodi Montgomery, who handles her personal care, while her father is still in control of her finances. Spears is reportedly content with Montgomery, who has been acting as her co-conservator since 2019, and she’s not looking for an end to her conservatorship altogether. “She’s taken care of and she knows it,” a source for TMZ stated.

Spears recently released a statement of her own regarding the public interest in her conservatorship case and some of the details mentioned in the Framing Britney documentary. “These documentaries are so hypocritical … they criticize the media and then do the same thing,” she wrote in an Instagram post. She also quelled rumors that she doesn’t run her own Instagram account.

At the start of 2020, things seemed to be going alright. Artists were putting on concerts and fans were attending them, with neither party needing to be concerned about the arrangement. That changed, of course, a few months into the year when the coronavirus pandemic became a serious global issue. Now, for most people, a show they caught in February or early March is the most recent concert they’ve been to. Death Cab For Cutie had a string of shows at Seattle’s iconic The Showbox from February 24 to 26, which they recorded and are now releasing as a live album, Live At The Showbox.

The 17-track album will initially be available as a one-day only release on Bandcamp on May 7 before getting a wider release at some point later this year. The band shared a statement about the album, saying:

“Like so many other artists, we expected to play a lot of shows in 2020. To gear up for the year ahead, we decided to warm up by playing an intimate, three-night stand at a venue that’s near and dear to our hearts — the Showbox in Seattle. Well, 2020 didn’t quite turn out as we had planned — but happily those three magical nights last February did, and we’re glad to say that we had them recorded.”

Check out the Live At The Showbox cover art and tracklist below.

1. “A Movie Script Ending”
2. “The New Year”
3. “The Ghosts Of Beverly Drive”
4. “Long Division”
5. “Gold Rush”
6. “Company Calls”
7. “Summer Skin”
8. “I Will Follow You Into The Dark”
9. “I Will Possess Your Heart”
10. “Black Sun”
11. “Northern Lights”
12. “Cath…”
13. “We Looked Like Giants”
14. “Soul Meets Body”
15. “60 & Punk”
16. “Tiny Vessels”
17. “Transatlanticism”

Death Cab For Cutie is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

With the 10-year anniversary for Game of Thrones having come and gone, HBO has released the first images from the show’s first (potentially of many) spinoff series, House of the Dragon. In the first photo, we see Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen and Prince Daemon Targaryen, played by Emma D’Arcy (Truth Seekers) and Matt Smith (Doctor Who), rocking platinum blonde wigs. (Maybe that’s why HBO wouldn’t let Emilia Clarke keep hers?) The other two images show Steve Toussaint’s Lord Corlys Velaryon living up to his “The Sea Snake” nickname (at least the sea part) and Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) and Otto Hightower (Rhys Ifans) posing for their album cover.

Have a look.

HBO also provided detailed descriptions for the main characters:

Emma D’Arcy as “Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen”: The king’s first-born child, she is of pure Valyrian blood, and she is a dragonrider. Many would say that Rhaenyra was born with everything… but she was not born a man.

Matt Smith as “Prince Daemon Targaryen”: The younger brother to King Viserys and heir to the throne. A peerless warrior and a dragonrider, Daemon possesses the true blood of the dragon. But it is said that whenever a Targaryen is born, the gods toss a coin in the air…

Steve Toussaint as “Lord Corlys Velaryon” (“The Sea Snake”): Lord of House Velaryon, a Valyrian bloodline as old as House Targaryen. As “The Sea Snake,” the most famed nautical adventurer in the history of Westeros, Lord Corlys built his house into a powerful seat that is even richer than the Lannisters and that claims the largest navy in the world.

Olivia Cooke as “Alicent Hightower”: The daughter of Otto Hightower, the Hand of the King, and the most comely woman in the Seven Kingdoms. She was raised in the Red Keep, close to the king and his innermost circle; she possesses both a courtly grace and a keen political acumen.

Rhys Ifans as “Otto Hightower”: The Hand of the King, Ser Otto loyally and faithfully serves both his king and his realm. As the Hand sees it, the greatest threat to the realm is the king’s brother, Daemon, and his position as heir to the throne.

House of the Dragon premieres on HBO in 2022.

Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade is, to be fair, a bit of a hothead. He digs a good argument. At times, he even fights with his Fox and Friends co-hosts, which makes the whole joint look like Fox and Frenemies, but Kilmeade doesn’t usually score a knockdown during arguments, and it’s not unheard of for Steve Doocy to stand as a voice of reason against Kilmeade. Well, the guy took on an unlikely opponent, and some might say a telling one, on Wednesday morning during a segment about how young students have fared amid ongoing school shutdowns and Zoom learning.

In the end, Kilmeade didn’t go easy on his chosen adversary. In fact, he let it be known that he was pushing back at a sixth grader. Mason Seder, a student out of Philly who’s been distance learning for the whole of the pandemic, was one of three young guests who popped in with Kilmeade for a panel; and via Mediaite, Seder didn’t hide his opinion on how he feels good about Biden’s cautious approach to reopening schools.

“I think we are very, very close getting back to school,” Mason calmly told Kilmeade. “And I think that the way that our new president is handling things is a very good way and we would not have gone to this if it were still the last president.”

Biden didn’t hesitate to tell Mason that he disagreed: “Really? That’s hard to believe. Because the last president was saying I want every kid back in school.”

Mason did not appear to be ruffled by Kilmeade’s politically-motivated comeback.