Pete Williams Scoops, Tucker Carlson Stoops | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room

Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has announced that he will retire from the bench.

NBC News’ Pete Williams reports that Justice Breyer has decided that he will retire at the end of his current term. The news means Joe Biden will have the opportunity to nominate the first justice of his presidency, and it will provide the opportunity for Breyer’s Supreme Court seat to remain in the hands of a left-leaning justice.

The news comes months after speculation among progressives about whether Breyer would step down for the express purpose of letting Biden and Congressional Democrats maintain the ideological balance of the court.

Breyer has mostly dismissed the political calculations behind that push, also warning Democrats not to try packing the court.

Williams said the Justice’s “intention is to retire at the end of this term.”

“Sometimes when justices step down they say they will retire at the point where their successor is confirmed,” said Williams. “But apparently what Breyer has decided to do, according to people who are familiar with his thinking, is that he would step down at the end of this contentious term.”

“We expect that an official announcement will come in the next day or so,” Williams reported. “Then the process will begin of trying to find someone to succeed him.”

The news is huge, of course. The political ramifications are incredible in scope. Which is why the fact that Pete Williams scooped the entire rest of the media on the earth-shattering story is such a win. Breyers’ intentions have been a media and political question for a long time.

Williams was first with the earthquake. He broke the story at 11:54:14 am ET during an NBC News Special Report. On MSNBC, Andrea Mitchell then carried the scoop at 11:58 ET. It spread from there, across social media and hitting CNN next at a few seconds after noon.

It was a massive scoop that got massive attention on a massive story, for a massive Williams and NBC News win.

It’s what used to be known as good, shoe-leather journalism.

On Fox News, infamous anti-vaxxer Alex Berenson told Tucker Carlson he believes Covid vaccines are dangerous, don’t work, and should be banned.

Almost all of what Berenson said was a flat out lie, of course. The vaccines have been found to be safe and incredibly effective at protecting against death and hospitalization. While new variants have proven more contagious for the vaccinated, studies show shots are still more effective against infection than no shots.

On Tucker Carlson Tonight, the host told his audience that Covid rates are “skyrocketing” in countries with the highest rates of vaccinated citizens, “including Denmark, Australia and Israel.”

Carlson brought Berenson in, who said that “It is completely clear now that the vaccines don’t really work at all against Omicron,” and advised the audience not to get any of the shots.

“The mRNA Covid vaccines need to be withdrawn from the market,” Berenson said. “No one should get them. No one should get boosted. No one should get double boosted. They are a dangerous and ineffective product at this point.”

The moment quickly went viral, and Twitter users laid into Berenson and Carlson over the dangerous and false alarmism.

A lot of the angry tweets focused specifically on Berenson, but CNN’ Brianna Keilar absolutely torched Fox News and Carlson for the interview.

Keilar noted Berenson was banned by Twitter for lying but “Fox has had this mad non-scientist on all pandemic.”

”Again, the daily double question is why is Rupert Murdoch, who was one of the first to get vaccinated, allowing this anti-science B.S. on the air? Because it is killing people,” said Keilar driving the point home.

That is the question for the network. And for Tucker Carlson, whose show had these chyrons on screen while Berenson was telling people lies about vaccination.

“A completely scary thing to hear,” said Carlson after hearing Berenson tell viewers not to take the vaccine or boosters. We could not agree more.