Dayton Chronicle cartoonist on Newsmax

Chris Salcedo interviewed A.F. Branco on the national conservative network, Newsmax, discussing the Biden Address, LeBron James, the Rudy Giuliani raid and Wokeness. Branco's political satire cartoons appear in the Dayton Chronicle on page 2.

Salcedo opened the segment, which aired on Newsmax on May 2, pointing out that Nielsen ratings of president Joe Biden's address to Congress last week had less than 27 million tuned in over 16 networks, while many 2017 addresses by former president Donald Trump pulled viewership of 50 million, on 11 networks.

He then introduced A.F. Branco as an "army veteran and one of my favorite satirists."

"This idea that anyone is enthusiastic about Biden's socialists is undercut by the numbers in the ratings, right?" Salcedo asked.

"Have you ever seen a more boring speech, or more boring address before Congress?" Branco responded. "I mean, you can't blame Senator Cruz for falling asleep. In fact, I was expecting Biden to fall asleep during his own speech, that's how bad it was."

In the address Biden pushed his American Families Plan, which Branco skewered with a cartoon showing a giant, pink, lip-sticked pig labeled "Record Debt" being held up by a diapered infant representing "Future Generations."

"You created an accurate depiction, in my view, of what his plan really is," Salcedo said. "It's uncontrolled spending and just another excuse to push Marxism on the American people, yes?"

"Absolutely," Branco replied. "Democrats are very good at strategically labeling their agenda: American Family Plan. To me it's nothing more than a money-laundering scheme for the Democrat party.

"They've done the same thing with infrastructure," Branco went on. "Now everything is infrastructure, under the umbrella of infrastructure, and it's just too bad because we can't have a really good discussion about it and really come to some problem-solving solutions if they're going to play that game."

Salcedo turned to the FBI raid on Rudy Giuliani's apartment. "The FBI claims it was looking for evidence Giuliani illegally lobbied Ukrainian officials and failed to register as a foreign agent. Your political cartoon beautifully illustrates how the FBI seems to have different standards for socialist Democrats than they do for Republicans.

Branco's opinion cartoon shows an FBI agent with a magnifying glass bending over and past a large pile of fly-swarmed manure labeled "The Clintons" and a smaller pile emblazoned "The Bidens" to be closely inspecting a small clump of doo-doo with a sign "Rudy."

"Where's the Hillary Raid? Where's the Hunter Biden Raid?" Branco asked. "People are beginning to think that the FBI is becoming the KGB arm of the Democrat Party.

"What Rudy should have done or should have said is that all of his instruments and all of his evidence had Hunter Biden evidence on it and they'd probably have let him go."

Shifting gears to the "Woke" crowd, Salcedo said "King-in-his-own-mind James was under fire for essentially threatening the cop involved in saving black lives in that shooting death of Ma'khia Bryant. But James remains silent on his Communist buddies over there in Communist China.

Salcedo's program shows LeBron James with both Nike basketball shoes in his mouth, with "You're Next" on the heels.

"To me this tells me everything that I need to know about the 'Woke' folks," Salcedo said. "They will open their big mouths unless it impacts their bottom line. I think that's beautiful."

"Thank you," Branco responded. "He's caught up in the group-think of Wokeness and the thing about Wokeness and group-think, you don't have to think for yourself. You just pontificate whatever your side or your camp is saying. Wokeness, to me, is nothing more than a cancer on society, it's a cancer on our [free] speech, on our debate, on critical thinking, on society as a whole.

"This is serious," Branco said. "People are losing their jobs over things they said ten years ago, or didn't say ten years ago."

"How concerned are you that somebody in your business, in satire and comedy, and a lot of comics are saying this, you can't joke around any more because the Left Wing is going to assassinate you if you step out of their particular lane?" Salcedo queried.

"I think conservatives, I think everybody needs to stand up to this and I plan on standing up to it," Branco said. "I'm not going to back down. I'm not going to stop doing my cartoons and bringing out the views and the points that I think need to be made in our society.

"Your time and talent are appreciated on this show," Salcedo concluded.