In a sign of desperation, Paxton and company went full Coyote and pulled an Acme brand conspiracy theory on Talarico, only for it to completely backfire. Talarico had been off the campaign trail for just over a week with the flu. But Paxton, with the help of two rightwing media personalities, tried pushing a particularly fantastical story: that Talarico had checked into an Ohio facility to deal with a mental health crisis.

Despite Talarico having never been to Ohio, and despite the alleged facility explicitly debunking the claim, and despite a New York Times examination of security footage proving that Talarico was indeed at his home in Texas during the time period in question, still Republicans ran with a lie so blatant, no one but the most lobotomized amongst us would believe it. Turns out that includes more people than I’d previously thought.

While the rightwing media spent most of Monday eating crow, the fact that this type of blatant disinformation soared across the internet is a testament to the media environment that Trump loyalists have created. Far from Twitter reining in this outright lie, Elon Musk himself amplified it. And that’s to say nothing of the gauzy coverage by CBS, the Washington Post, and I presume soon enough CNN.

It just so happened that in this particular instance, the Republican strategy is so disastrous that it’s actually working in Democrats’ favor— because after Paxton and his cronies perpetuated the Talarico conspiracy theory, Trump and Fox News doubled down on it and added their own flare: Talarico should show himself. And do it on a debate stage. If Talarico wants to prove he hasn’t had this made up mental crack up, he should debate Ken Paxton, they said.

And Talarico’s response was, well… yeah.

He’d love nothing more than to debate Ken Paxton; he’s been calling for it for months. Paxton is one of the most corrupt candidates in recorded history who has all the rhetorical prowess of a piece of toast, whereas Talarico is one of the most gifted public speakers on the trail today. James Talarico actually could be mid-mental health episode, and still cruise through a debate against Paxton.

Of course, this is the last thing Ken Paxton wants, because then he’d have to get on stage and defend a rap sheet of criminal behavior. Behavior like committing voter fraud by voting from an address he no longer lives at; getting impeached in the Texas House 121-23; having an affair with a senate aide, which tanked his marriage; having a different affair, then physically attacking strangers who caught him on camera while on vacation with that woman in the midst of the campaign. The list goes on. It would, admittedly, be a lot of information for Paxton to keep straight in the heat of a debate. Everyone would love to see him try.

Everyone, that is, except for Ken Paxton himself.

Not that we didn’t already have 16 million reasons to imagine they would do this.

It’s worth noting that one of the big companies featured in the report was a defense tech company called Anduril, in which Don Jr. took a major stake last summer through his venture capital firm. Since then, that company alone has picked up 135 federal contracts valued at about $1.8 billion. On Tuesday, the president announced another $6.6 billion deal with the company. A handful of other companies the Trump brothers have their hands in were also flagged in ABC’s report, which also secured contracts post-Trump investment.

So far, we have no official justification for why the article was pulled. Plenty of noise from Don Jr., though, who’s been going off on Twitter about it and how the story is “false!” (Sure thing.) In the absence of facts, we get to fill in the blanks ourselves.

This isn’t the first time a media company has capitulated to the infantile whims of the Trump White House. At this point, the track record is almost too long to rattle off. In fact, if you look at the archives of this Substack, I’ve documented extensively this exact phenomenon. Hell, this isn’t even the first time Disney has done it. Recall the $16 million settlement they paid to settle a nonsense lawsuit back in 2024.

For the umpeenth time: settling with Trump doesn’t buy you favor. All it does is prove that he owns you. It gives him carte blanche to walk all over you again, and if I had to guess, that’s exactly what happened here.

Media consolidation has handed most of the big networks to billionaires who are either Trump allies or have business before his administration, and usually both. Case in point of the week: the Paramount/Warner Brothers merger win for Trump-buddy David Ellison. But this ABC debacle proves that you don’t even need a friendly owner. You just need a company with business before the administration, broadcast licenses to hold onto, and regulators to please. That’s all it takes.

ABC pulling the story didn’t rewrite history. This information is public, and this story isn’t entirely new. The details of those contracts are very easily searchable at usaspending.gov, if you’d like to see it for yourself. And this story’s been done - by the Washington Post in July, with a tally of the government contracts won up until that point.

Ultimately, the move backfired on everyone. Pulling the story only made it a bigger story. Certainly not what Don Jr. or the White House were going for. And ABC doesn’t look great, either. All of which underscores the need for news that is neither owned nor leveraged by this White House— a commodity vanishingly rare in today’s media environment.

David Ellison now controls one of the biggest media empires in the world, which includes both CBS and CNN, two legacy film studios, and two major streaming platforms. It’s hard to articulate just how monstrous this deal is, both in terms of size and consequence. Thousands of jobs are on the chopping block. CNN’s independence is a huge question mark, for which my confidence is at an all time low given the cautionary tale that is CBS News.

The thing is, we saw this coming. Not just this merger, but this entire media landscape. The right wing’s media consolidation crusade has been going on for at least as long as I’ve been alive. It started in earnest in the ‘90s when Sinclair Broadcast Group started scooping up local news stations. It now controls about 40% of local affiliates in the country. You may remember them from such Orwellian moments as this one in 2018, when they made dozens of anchors recite the same script— ironically enough about fake news.

Rupert Murdoch then launched Fox News in 1996 with Roger Ailes at the helm, crafted specifically to serve as an antidote to the “liberal media.” The network was branded Fair and Balanced, not because Fox saw itself as “fair” or “balanced,” but expressly because the network would serve as a rightwing balance to the otherwise liberal media. It was always a rightwing partisan project.

Cut to: today. With this merger, the entire media space is concentrated in the hands of a select few tech oligarchs, all of whom you’ve seen whispering sweet nothings into Trump’s ear at some lunch or inauguration over the last two years. Ellison has CBS and CNN, Elon Musk has X, Mark Zuckerberg has his Meta empire, and Jeff Bezos let democracy die in broad daylight when he gutted the Washington Post.

The left has responded by not responding. It’s the same way we fell short in combatting rightwing gerrymandering, which began in earnest by the GOP in 2010 and continues to this very cycle, in which Republicans gerrymandered 12 seats in their favor. Democrats responded by redrawing the maps in all of *one* state, California (and winning a court case in Utah, adding one more blue seat). On the spectrum of being slow to respond, Democrats make “time between seasons of Severance” seem brief.

We have to get out of this paralysis. We have to fight back.

We have an opportunity to do it with independent media. It’s the last vestige of independence— free from the same rightwing influence that plagues the mainstream media, courthouses, statehouses, and the US Capitol.

For my part, I will continue to raise my voice and fight for a more progressive America— one where the rule of law matters, where elections are fair and voting is protected, where the fight to combat climate change is taken seriously, and where everyone has healthcare.

The Ellisons of the world are going to keep pouring billions into bulking up these giant conglomerates, and the mainstream media will continue to be compromised. But I will do my part to make sure that the one battleground that we don’t cede is the independent media ecosystem.

Trump’s approval rating is at rock bottom, 31%, and it’s being dragged way down largely by his war in Iran. It’s one thing for him to lean into flaunting his decision to use taxpayer money to pay for propaganda. But to do it on his least popular issue is certainly a choice.

It’s like putting marble sinks in an airplane – something Trump once tried to do; no one asked for it and it’ll lead to disaster.

And if you’re wondering why he’d do this now, just 33 days out from the midterms, my answer to you would be: why not? He’d do it at any time. There’s no rhyme or reason as to when a narcissist decides to engage in narcissism. As far as Trump is concerned, he - and by association, all of his decisions - are perfect. So it should come as no surprise that it doesn’t seem to occur to him that there could be downstream negative effects to reminding voters of his party’s biggest liability right now.

Republicans who are fighting for their lives in races across the country are having to answer for the fallout from Trump’s dumpster fire of a war. It’s sending gas prices surging, decimating farmers’ ability to make ends meet, and serves as a glaring slap in the face to voters who believed Trump’s promises of “no new wars.” And now those very voters are being reminded of all of this in between Fox News hits.

But this is what they asked for. Republicans have had so many opportunities to turn this thing around - there have been 20 war powers votes in the House and Senate since the war started in February - and they’ve just blown past every single off ramp. So now, a month out from the election, Republicans have no choice but to stand by their man as he reminds their angry voters that, in addition to spending a fortune on gas, they’re spending a billion dollars a day on this war.

Because fiscal resposibility. Or something.

He’s tried to justify the commercials, by saying “These are ads for the country… I’m not promoting myself because I’m not running for office. I’m promoting the country.” OK, but he’s also been saying, please pretend like I’m on the ballot when you’re voting. So, his logic, like his brain, is mushy.

And look, I’m more than happy to do my patriotic duty as well by promote this ad, if that’s what Trump wants. It’s my honor and privilege to broadcast exactly what the GOP’s priority is - to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars - so that it stays top of mind for every single voter heading to the polls in November.

You’re welcome, Donald.

On that note, now is the time to make sure you’re ready to vote. Check your voter registration at this link and then make a plan: when, where, how. Election Day is November 3.

Check Your Registration

Then the major TV networks turned the cameras off in solidarity.

In practice, that meant that Trump’s ribbon cutting ceremony was broadcast with no audio; only static buzzed atop footage of the coronation of his precious helipad. But more broadly, it means that we’ve crossed the rubicon in Trump’s ongoing and interminable war with our free press.

At long last, the media seems to have finally woken up to the fact that they are stronger together than they are fighting individual one-off battles against Trump in the most cowardly ways possible. Like, for example, by heaping millions of dollars to settle frivolous lawsuits into his pockets. Caving to Trump’s demands doesn’t advance their position. All it does is prove to him that they are weak, that he owns them, and that he can make them cave again.

That’s what he was betting would happen this time. It hasn’t.

Rather than retreating to their newsrooms to tie themselves in knots trying to regain access to the White House, these outlets banded together to fight back. CNN, MSNOW, and Politico have filed the legal challenges. The White House TV pool suspended its coverage. That means no White House event footage from ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, or even Fox News.

While I certainly believe that depriving Trump of his precious microphones and cameras is an appropriate consequence for his actions, let’s be clear: this isn’t about retaliation. This isn’t a strategy or a negotiating tactic or even a punishment. This is the media taking the necessary step of organizing to demand the reinstatement of CNN, MSNOW, and Politico because press freedom is fundamental in this country and there is no other option. We have a first amendment right to a free press in the United States. Period.

So yes, the product of this move is that Trump will surrender the attention that he so desperately craves, but we don’t actually need to justify this any more than recognizing the fact that the Constitution affords Americans an assurance that the government will not attempt to ban the free press.

I wish it didn’t take two years into this autocratic president’s second term for the media to learn how to respond to these attacks. I wish we didn’t have to watch news outlets offer millions of dollars to this president to curry favor with him. I wish we didn’t have to wait for the AP to win a lawsuit in front of a district court judge before they were allowed back into the Press Briefing Room for the crime of calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of Mexico. I wish, I wish, I wish.

Eventually, though, we landed at a place where legacy media finally learned the value of organizing to protect press freedom, understanding that banning one or two or three outlets effectively gives Trump tacit permission to ban anyone who doesn’t curry favor with him. It gives any future president tacit permission to ban anyone who doesn’t curry favor with them. The pendulum swings both ways, after all.

So while I understand that most people (myself included) will applaud the fact that Trump has effectively silenced himself and recognize that that’s a pretty damn effective strategy to get this media hound of a president to very quickly change course, that is not why the press is doing it, nor should it be why the press is doing it. The only justification that’s needed here is that we have a fundamental First Amendment right to press freedom in this country.

That alone is worth fighting for.

I spent the first part of my career surrounded by young conservatives. My job was funny. Working for a right-wing think tank, I traveled across the country promoting conservative thought on otherwise overwhelmingly liberal campuses. It was the early 2000s.

Ten years later, Charlie Kirk founded Turning Point USA and targeted the same types of conservative kids. His mission was to herd them away from the life of the mind and turn them into activists. He succeeded to a degree that no one could have predicted.

Like most conservatives in the Before Times, Kirk was initially skeptical of Trump. He said—publicly—that Trump’s ascent made it harder to convert kids on college campuses.

He tried to prop up the candidacies of Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. Like pretty much everyone else on the right, though, he learned to love Trump after 2016. By 2020, Kirk was calling Trump the “bodyguard of Western civilization” on stage at the RNC.

That evolution tracks closely with the broader MAGA-fication of the very-online right. Today’s young conservatives—or “conservatives”—bear little to no resemblance to the people I surrounded myself with back in my early career. And now that I’ve walked away from all that, and spent the last decade working to dismantle Trumpism root and branch, here’s my warning for anyone who cares about American democracy:

The generation of young people coming up on the right are not your father’s conservatives. They are Trump’s heirs, and they are here to stay. And if we want to save America from MAGA authoritarianism, it’s going to require more than just beating Trump and his hand-picked candidates—it’s going to mean tackling this entire movement. That starts with understanding how they got here, and what their dark vision for the country entails.

* * *

If you are thirty years old in 2026, Donald Trump has been part of the political scene for as long as you’ve been paying attention. Trump entered politics as a birther conspiracy theorist going after Barack Obama when you were sixteen years old. The first presidential election you could vote in was in 2016, when Trump won. Your political consciousness was formed during Trump’s first term. Then there was COVID and four years of Joe Biden. And now Trump’s president again.

For people my age and older, Trump was shocking. He violated every norm, every expectation, every standard of presidential behavior we’d grown up with. He was extraordinary in the truest sense of the word—completely outside the ordinary bounds of American politics.

Here’s the first thing you need to understand about young conservatives today: They don’t share your shock. They don’t share your sense that Trump is a deviation from normal politics because they have no reference point for what “normal” politics looked like before him. To them, this is what politics is. The chaos, the tweets, the rallies, the culture war, the constant drama—that’s American politics.

When I ask young Trump voters in focus groups how they first got interested in politics, it is... unusual to hear them talk about reading the works of conservative intellectuals or being persuaded by economic arguments about tax policy or the size of government. Instead, here’s what I hear from the youngest members of the GOP base, who helped drive a shift to the right among young people in 2024:

• Antonio from California: “I looked into Trump, and I found out that everything the news said about him was fake, that he wasn’t actually a racist. And I’m like, ‘Okay, I support Trump.’”

• Justin from Kentucky: “I remember a lot of controversy around Russian meddling … it was all just kind of a wild goose chase. That’s kind of when my political views started to shift.”

• Sam from Missouri: “I’m a big fan of Benny Johnson, Charlie Kirk, and Joe Rogan podcasts.” He said he doesn’t “watch mainstream media at all anymore” because it “seems really biased.”

Trump isn’t the end point of a logical political journey. Trump is the starting point. He’s the gateway. And from there, the algorithm takes over.

* * *

There has been a lot of chatter in recent years about “virtue signalling” on the left. But in response, the right came up with something of its own: vice signaling. They find it enjoyable to live in spaces that feel verboten. To consume content that’s edgy or controversial or that people tell them they shouldn’t watch. It’s transgressive. Now, for young people, being transgressive has always been appealing. Elvis, long-haired hippies, punk rock—same as it ever was.

The problem is that the way to be transgressive today is to flirt with the far, far right. Nick Fuentes does not like Jews. Tucker Carlson promotes a “historian” who says Churchill was the real villain in WWII and that the Holocaust was just an oopsy. The Tate brothers are heroes to hundreds of thousands of young men because they traffic women. Over the last couple of years, we’ve had dozens of scandals in which young Republican types have been caught doing some Nazi fetishizing, or Jim Crow-style racism, or joking about rape.

That’s what political transgressiveness looks like for Republicans in 2026. Some of the young people who try on these poses do it with ironic distance. “We don’t really believe this stuff,” they’ll say. “We’re not literal Nazis. We just like to trigger you squares and explore ideas that everyone says we’re not allowed to talk about.”

But here’s the thing about ironic distance: It shrinks. We are the stories we tell about ourselves. You begin with ironic distance— “I’m just watching this for the lulz, I don’t actually agree with it”—but the more you engage with evil, the more it becomes part of how you think. It’s the Orwell line about how we become the masks we wear.

Trump didn’t just win elections. He changed what it means to be conservative for an entire generation. He made it okay—cool, even—to say things that used to be unsayable, to reject expertise, to trust podcasters over professors, to make politics more about the culture war than the “providing for the common defense” and “promoting the general welfare” that’s part of our government’s remit.

None of this will go away when Trump leaves the scene because there’s a whole generation of young conservatives who only know politics this way. For them, Trump isn’t a deviation from conservatism—he is conservatism. They’re building a durable movement in his image. Trump will be gone one day, but his heirs will remain.

For those of us in the pro-democracy community, that’s a scary thought. Back in 2016, it would have been a lot more comforting to think of Trump as an anomaly, an accident of history. But what we’ve seen since then is the opposite: His brand of politics took over one half of our system, and if we want to save the country, it’s on the rest of us to offer a better, more inspiring, positive vision for what the country can be.

As an optimist, I fully believe that’s doable. But it doesn’t happen on its own. It requires that the big, broad, pro-democracy tent invest in building a messaging infrastructure that helps us communicate at scale to counteract the MAGA media machine. It requires independent media that understands what time it is, and refuses to gaslight its audience with both-sides nonsense, or to bow and scrape before this vindictive administration. And it’s going to require moral and physical courage, and the clarity of vision to see that we’re in a new era now.

Sarah Longwell is the author of “How to Eat an Elephant: One Voter at a Time,” publisher of The Bulwark, and host of The Focus Group podcast.

This midterm “convention” is already a trainwreck that, if they’re lucky, no one will see. To that end, it is programmed against the first two games of the NFL season. So if it’s a flop, at least it will flop quietly.

In terms of what it is, “convention” is a strong term, since none of the actual “business” of a typical convention is taking place. What we have instead is a TV show. The executive producer-in-chief has put on an old school charity telethon, the kind that used to raise money for disaster aid. But the disaster here is Trump and his Republican Party.

The desperation started at the door - lawmakers had to pay between $25,000 and $100,000 just for the privilege of attending.

It’s telling who did and didn’t go. According to an NPR analysis, less than half of the Republican candidates in competitive House and Senate races were listed as convention speakers. They were offered a platform to make their case on the President’s stage and they said, “pass.”

Some of the most vulnerable candidates in the country declined the invitation. Representative David Valadao of California, who was already treading water before California redistricted opted out.

Representative Max Miller of Ohio decided showing up would be too much of a hit to his reputation— a guy facing allegations of domestic abuse against his ex-wife and toddler daughter.

Representative Thomas Kean Jr. of New Jersey opted out of the opportunity to put in face time, even after going missing from Congress for more than 100 votes.

Also absent from the roster is Representative Tom Barrett of Michigan, who’s running in one of the most competitive districts in the country, and Senator Susan Collins of Maine, who’s fighting for her political life.

I’d say even more telling are the people who doth protest too much: vulnerable Republicans snapping at reporters just for asking whether they’d be there. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks of Iowa and Rep. Jen Kiggans of Virginia both yelled at journalists for the crime of even asking if they’d RSVP’d. What is it they say about a hit dog hollering?

Then you have the roster of who did show up. The clear charity case was Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, the Republican Senate nominee, who is trailing his opponent James Talarico in both polling and money. Paxton, who was the charisma of a wooden spoon, got on stage and practically begged:

“I need your prayers, your vote and your support.”

Nothing screams confidence quite like a Senate candidate saying, pray for me.

Other speakers didn’t fare much better. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had the impossible task of selling voters on the Trump economy when 66% of them think it’s in the toilet. So, naturally, he did the only thing one can do: blame Biden. Trump himself dismissed the affordability crisis as a “hoax.” But also, it’s the Democrats’ fault. Heads I win, tails you lose.

When musicians start putting out the greatest hits albums, it’s the beginning of the end. The Republicans are terrified of the future, so they’re falling back on the past. They refuse to acknowledge the realities their constituents are facing, and even more reluctant to acknowledge the reality they’re facing themselves.

This was part of a push that’s been going on for months amid Trump’s decree that Republicans needed to go on a redistricting rampage to salvage a midterm election he knows he’s going to lose. But the strategy isn’t holding. The map was blocked by both the Missouri Supreme Court and the US Supreme Court: both firmly rightwing institutions. That suggests that Trump and his lackeys have gone so far off the rails in their desperation to hang on to a majority that’s all but lost, they can’t even convince their own side to support it.

So how did we get here? This gerrymandered map came as a result of a special legislative session Missouri Governor Mike Kehoe called in immediate response to Trump’s demand to find seats to which he felt he was “entitled.” But even with the deck stacked against them, Trump’s opponents organized. An organization called People Not Politicians gathered over 300,000 signatures on a petition to force this gerrymandered map to a statewide vote. Missouri’s Republican Secretary of State then sat on that petition until the day of the primary election before rejecting it in a transparent effort to run out the clock. It didn’t work.

The move pissed off the state Supreme Court, who said that the petition was legit, and the new map couldn’t go into effect without a vote from the people of Missouri. And Justice Kavanaugh basically said, what they said.

This whole episode tells me a couple of things.

First, Trump is acutely aware of the writing on the wall and Republicans are trembling right behind him. They’re acting out of fear and taking desperate (not to mention illegal) swings as a result. Case in point, this gerrymandering effort so egregious, even members of their own party couldn’t sanction it.

And second, regular people have agency— and they’re using it. The whole reason we’re talking about this story is because 300,000 regular Missourians organized to defeat something they knew was wrong. That should send a message to everyone, everywhere - and not least of all deep red states like Missouri - that we have power. It’s telling that it wasn’t Democrats in the state legislature, or federal courts in a vacuum that made this happen; 300,000 Missourians did.

The great irony here is that Trump did this to himself. He wouldn’t have to issue these ridiculous commands to essentially rig these elections if he hadn’t failed so spectacularly at delivering on any of his campaign promises. If he had just done the job he said he would, he wouldn’t have to work overtime to try to keep it. But of course, that would require Donald Trump caring about anyone not named Donald Trump.

As we head toward the midterms, this is what gives me hope. And it’s what should inspire you to know that real change is within reach. Americans are paying attention, getting organized, and mounting an offensive that’s already started to work. And we won’t let up any time soon.

News networks are free to report on polls, whether we agree with them or not. They can report on the standings in a race, whether the data shows if an endorsement is helping or hurting. This is basic First Amendment stuff. You ask any judge - liberal, conservative, appointed by any president - they’re going to tell you that’s a settled matter of law.

Trump knows that. So when you see him lashing out like this and trying to turn the FCC into his personal attack force, it tells you one thing: he’s scared.

There’s a pattern here

In his Truth Social post, Trump calls the polls fake. It’s just another iteration of his claims about stolen elections, or millions of illegal voters, or ballots went missing - the list goes on. Trump is doing absolutely everything he can to sow doubt and to undermine trust in our elections. That way, when Election Day rolls around, and the results come in, he’s primed his audience to hear that the results are fake, too.

Trump’s henchman is FCC Chair Brendan Carr: the kind of “how high”-style jumping. Trump issued this decree and Carr will jump into action. You can set your watch by his incoming tweets, posts, and soundbites: a performance for an audience of one. He doesn’t have much actual, practical power in this case. But even his waving around an imaginary sword will have a chilling effect.

The media’s not innocent

To their credit, NBC News issued a defense of Welker in response to Trump’s attacks— the bare minimum in this situation. But these legacy media institutions have a terrible track record when it comes to responding to Trump’s egregious attacks on the free press and free speech. Since 2024, Trump’s extracted tens of millions in tribute in the form of “settlements” from ABC and Paramount to resolve his petty complaints of perceived slights against them. When they caved, he learned he could just do it again. So that’s what we’re seeing here: learned behavior. When you reward a dog for peeing on the rug, they’re just going to pee on the rug again. (Not my dog; Aston is perfect.)

So they’ve trained him, but he’s training them, too. His threat has a chilling effect. Media outlets will watch this debacle play out and start to think that it could happen to them, too. NBC News faces “some rebuke or punishment” for reporting on polls the president doesn’t like, and everyone else will start to worry that’s what awaits them if they do the same. At which point they just… stop doing it.

That’s why, I believe, independent media has never been more important. While legacy outlets may be learning all the wrong lessons in their interminable effort to stay in Trump’s good graces, I have no such desire. I am already on his enemies list for speaking out against him, and I wear it as a badge of honor. If you’d like to support my work and this newsletter, please consider becoming a subscriber. Thanks for supporting me and independent media.

Last week, two news organizations, the Intercept and the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation, sued Trump for his scheme to sell early access to Truth Social posts to the highest bidder, for $100,000 a month. The suits allege this violates the First Amendment, which gives everyone equal access to the President’s statements.

Now, it’s absolutely a free speech issue, but in our apocalyptically game-ified economy, it’s also basically an insider trading issue. Case in point, the first ten customers to sign up are mostly high-frequency trading firms. They’re paying for early access to Trump’s statements on things like tariffs, the economy, and the Iran War - all topics that move markets. Even a few seconds of advance notice could amount to millions in profits.

So, obviously media outlets and press freedom organizations are going to sue, and they should. And naturally Trump’s detractors are going to put out statements against this, referencing the historic level of self-enrichment this president has engaged in, and they should.

But even Joe Rogan, Mr. Manosphere himself, can’t wrap his head around the level of corruption this move reaches. On his podcast, he questioned how this could possibly be legal, and said what we’re all thinking - that it is “literally crazy.”

I’ve spilled a lot of ink calling out Trump for everything he’s not doing for regular people and how it’s led to a marked decline in quality of life for Americans since he’s been in office. But this isn’t just a matter of what he’s not doing; it’s a matter of what he is doing for his cronies. The friends and family deals - of which this scheme is just one of many - is leading to a shocking concentration of wealth in the hands of just a few people willing to sell their souls to Trump.

When I was in high school, there was a social studies teacher who I loved. He was a curmudgeonly bald man with a Ralph Nader bumper sticker on his car, a real anti-establishment type. He’d been at the school forever; the kind of teacher who taught generations in the same family. In my senior year, I signed up for his class simply because he was the teacher. But that same year, he was diagnosed with late-stage cancer (I believe liver or pancreatic). He came to exactly one class. I remember clear as day him telling us to take out our notebooks and write the word: oligarchy. That was the only word we wrote that day.

In his first and only class with us, he would go on to do a 40-minute lecture about a problem that - all the way back in 2003 - was already becoming apparent. He only lived a few more months after that, and it was crushing not only because he was an institution in that school, but because he was a great teacher who had a huge impact on my life. It’s a strange full-circle moment for me because that teacher was in large part why I became interested in politics, and the very last thing he taught my class was about one of the preeminent issues of our time– an issue that has come to full maturity today.

The United States has descended into an oligarchy. Trump has allowed power to be concentrated in the hands of a few rich and powerful people close to him and his family, and together they’re running the country for their own benefit, rather than for the good of the people. This is what Russia looks like. This is textbook Putin, and we all know that Trump is the ultimate Putin fangirl.

I hope, for the sake of the country, that these lawsuits succeed in shutting down this grift. But with Trump, it’s just a game of whack-a-mole. If this scam gets cut off, I’d put money on the fact that another one will pop up in its place. Of course, I’d get better returns on my bet if I could just buy some early access to the inside track on what exactly Trump might do next.

I resolved this week to make one final go at the New York Times best seller list in an effort to unseat JD Vance. I want to send a message that this White House’s constant attempts to attack their critics will only amplify our voices.

Order THE DAY AFTER

And look, I never asked for this fight. I did not want to be on an enemies list. For those who read my newsletters or watch my videos, you know that I keep my head down. I don’t do drama. I don’t even share much about myself personally. For me, it’s about the work. It’s always been about the work.

But if the White House is going to try and scare me by putting a public target on my back, then I’m going to do what I wish we’d seen from all of those law firms and universities and tech CEOs and legacy media companies that opted to capitulate when Trump targeted them. I’m going to fight back.

So if you’d like to help me in this effort, I’d ask that you order a copy of my book and help me unseat JD Vance. Today marks the final day of the week for the best seller list, so if you’d like to support my work, this is the best moment to do so.

I hope you’ve appreciated my content over the last decade (I cannot believe I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life reporting on this circus). In the meantime, I will continue to expose this White House’s corruption on a daily basis. And I will never paywall my content because my north star is that politics should be accessible to everyone.

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While not even all that original (Taylor Swift has been sneaking around in a suitcase for security purposes for years), the lunacy is befitting the Trump era. Even the screenwriter of the iconic Harrison Ford movie, Air Force One, told the New York Times he couldn’t imagine scripting it.

But the shock value isn’t what gets me. It’s the wanton callousness that the whole episode exposes. Because even as Trump’s team assessed that it was so dangerous to fly on Air Force One he needed to be snuck out of there in a catering cart, they let everyone else on that flight take off.

As this White House tries to silence me, please help elevate my voice. Order my book, The Day After, and send Trump the message that I won’t be censored.

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The decoy plane was packed with administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, along with the president’s aides, and members of the advance team.

What’s most chilling to me, though, is that the plane was also carrying journalists. That, right there, tells you everything you need to know about how Trump and this administration feels about the press. Shoot them out of the sky for all they care.

The journalists aboard Air Force One had no idea they were being used as a decoy amid a credible assassination threat. And if something had happened to them, I think we can guess how Trump would respond. It would be as horrifically unfeeling as his response to the deaths of service members during his pointless war in Iran— which, ironically enough, is why this threat existed in the first place.

This is maybe the most dramatic illustration of that attitude, but it’s certainly not the first. I’ve personally been on the receiving end of the administration’s disdain for anyone who dare speak up and tell the truth.

I wear it as a badge of honor.

All this week, I’ve been writing about the death threats and harassment I’ve dealt with since Trump put me on a list of “Media Offenders.” I’ve been fighting back by continuing to do what I’ve been doing for a decade as a creator in the independent media space. And most recently, I published my new book, The Day After, which is now available. If you order a copy, you send a message to this White House that their efforts to silence me are only affording me a bigger platform and a louder voice. Your support means I can keep going.

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The number one question I got after all this? Why don’t you sue Donald Trump?

Let’s talk about the answer, because the truth is that it’s complicated.

As this White House tries to silence me, please help elevate my voice. Order my book, The Day After, and send Trump the message that I won’t be censored.

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First of all, the government has the right to free speech, just like you and I do. And as mind boggling as it may be, their decision to include me on a list of enemies on the official White House website is likely within their constitutional rights.

Granted, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t pay a political price. With everything this administration has to contend with - inflation, high gas prices, healthcare cuts, a raging war in the Middle East, the Epstein files - the White House has chosen to martial its resources to go after a content creator. Not make life better for voters. Not resolve the problems of their own making. Not seek accountability for victims. But to try and silence an independent media critic. It’s hard to argue they care about regular people when this is how they’re spending their political capital.

If I wanted to sue, however, I could make the argument that Trump’s decision to target me puts me in physical danger, which is objectively true; as I mentioned, there was a marked increase in threats and harassment that followed the publication of his Media Offenders list. But the cost of mounting that argument is steep— financially, mentally, and emotionally. Fighting a lawsuit against the government is a monumental task with no guarantee of success. It would cost me tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. And it would drag on for months, if not years. The government knows that, which is why they wield that weapon so freely, even when they know they don’t have a case. The process alone is punishment unto itself.

So here’s where that leaves me. The harassment, cyber attacks, and death threats will continue. I might not be able to win in court, even if I had the wherewithal to go through with that process. But I can still win this fight. I do that by refusing to let this White House force me sit down and shut up.

If you’d like to support my work, my new book, The Day After, is now available. If you could order a copy, it would send a message to this White House that their efforts to silence me are only affording me a bigger platform and a louder voice.

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The White House might have gotten the impression from law firms, universities, legacy media outlets, and tech CEOs that these fights are easy to win. But I have zero intention of rolling over.

I haven’t spoken publicly about the fallout. When Donald Trump targeted me, the harassment, death threats, and targeting online were instantaneous. Working in political media, I’m certainly no stranger to vitriol. But when the president weighed in, it reached a whole new level.

I actually have a vested interest in not talking about any of this publicly. I don’t want to incentivize bad actors and let them know that it has an impact. So why bring it up now?

I want you to know why the White House targets people with shoddy cases that are doomed to fail— like the ones against Jerome Powell, Letitia James, James Comey, the six Democrats who dared recite what the Uniform Code of Military Justice said about refusing to follow illegal orders, and even Sean Charles Dunn - the man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent.

They don’t bring these cases in good faith to secure a conviction. They exploit the legal system to crush these people: with astronomical legal bills, the anxiety and stress of dealing with a federal prosecution, and the full force of a mob of Trump supporters ready to do his bidding.

These people are being made examples of. These cases are a signal to everyone else: fall in line, or you’re next.

When Trump set his sights on me, I knew what could be coming, and I had every reason to lay low and stay quiet. But if I did, what kind of message would that send? How could I expect anyone else to fight back if I wasn’t willing to do it myself?

So, I haven’t stopped, even for a second, since my name showed up on that list. Because I want to show the administration that their intimidation tactics don’t work. And because I want to be an example to others.

And I will continue to speak out, no matter how uncomfortable it gets. If you’d like to support me in this fight, I’ll make one request. My new book, The Day After, is now available. I know that the day is coming when Democrats get back into power, and I hope they’ll act accordingly. The book is a roadmap, and it needs to get into as many hands as possible .

If you can, please order a copy. It’s worth noting that while my book is not on the New York Times best seller list, JD Vance’s book is. Help me send a message to this White House that progressive media is a powerful force that can’t be silenced.

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Thank you for staying in this fight, no matter how hard it gets.

- BTC

Trump has confirmed nearly 60 of these people to judicial postings all over the country.

They’re following a script. When asked, point blank, who won the 2020 election, these judges have said “President Biden was certified as the winner of the 2020 presidential election and served as the 46th President of the United States,” or he “was declared the victor,” or “Joe Biden was certified the winner and served four years.” Not one of them has given the real, simple answer: Joe Biden won.

These statements aren’t just absurd, they’re blood oaths to Trump. Effectively, these judges are going on the record endorsing a lie that serves the President, and which signals that their loyalties lie with him and not with the Constitution or the rule of law.

But Trump’s not just collecting sycophants for fun (even though I’m sure, to him, it is fun). By installing them in the judiciary, he’s building a standing army to do his bidding come election day. This is just another manifestation of his fear of losing the midterms. So instead of trying to win on the merits - which we all know he can’t - this is another way to rig the game.

This isn’t just some abstract anxiety (I have plenty of those; they’re somehow more existential). This could have tangible consequences coming down the pike. These judges will have real power the moment the polls close on election night. Here’s what they could do to interfere with the vote count, and either swing things in Republicans’ favor, or delegitimize the process wholesale.

Let’s say they see a slew of temporary restraining orders filed on election night. This was a popular move in 2020. More than 60 election lawsuits were filed, and Trump and the Republicans blitzed states with TROs to halt ballot counts and certifications. Let’s assume that was a test run and they’re going to double down this time.

These judges would probably salivate at the prospect of TROs, because they can be approved within hours, without the other party present, and without much scrutiny. By the time these would get turned over on appeal, whether they’re BS or not, deadlines might have passed, and we’ll have people questioning the legitimacy of the election anyway (read: “Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican Congressmen”).

Preliminary injunctions might be even worse. If one of these judges issues one to halt a ballot count, it stays in place until a lawsuit plays out in court or is dismissed. Trump and Republicans filed these in Michigan, Arizona, and Pennsylvania in 2020. They were dismissed in court by sane judges. But if they’re filed with this new batch of confirmed election deniers, they’ll be a lot more effective.

Whether or not these tactics actually work in the end is almost beside the point; they sow chaos and they undermine confidence in the electoral process, which is already hanging on by a thread. Trump learned from his last go around at trying to do this, and with these judicial appointments, he’s hoping to put what he learned into action.

What worries me, watching these sycophants parrot these lies, isn’t just that they’re willing to do it. It’s that they’re lying just enough to offer a wink and a nod to Dear Leader, while still preserving just enough plausible deniability to get confirmed. That means come election night, they’ll be sitting on the bench with a TRO in hand, ready to do his bidding.

So while legacy media focuses on infighting and online drama, I’m focused on these threats to our elections and democracy. No matter how many distractions get thrown my way, I will not look away. I hope you won’t either.

The DOJ accused the former Olympic canoeist of “forcefully and violently pulling up and removing the bottom liner with both hands,” based on “tremendous” evidence. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum backed up the claim saying he was “100 percent sure” vandals were responsible.

Cut to this past weekend, wherein Pirro conceded that Hearn had nothing to do with the damage and that the indictment was based on lies. Once she dropped the indictment, the agreed-upon Reflecting Pool story fell apart. And you know who hated that?

The story’s author, Trump.

Predictably, he raged against Pirro – one of his most loyal supporters. And the rage was, frankly, justified because she’d exposed him and everyone who went along with this for what they are: liars.

Now, in all the legacy media coverage of this story, guess what one word is conspicuously absent?

“Lie.”

Let’s take a look at some of the semantic gymnastics our nation’s top legacy media outlets put themselves through covering this story. You have “Trump Team Feuds Over Whether Reflecting Pool Was Hit by Vandals or Botched Work” from the Wall Street Journal. Olympic level use of the passive voice, there.

Then there’s “Trump insists vandals damaged Reflecting Pool, blasts DOJ for dropped charge” from the Washington Post. Thank goodness someone is transcribing what Trump insists.

If Trump’s own administration is admitting they’re lying, then why can’t the legacy media come out and say it, too? How is it that a decade into this nightmare circus, we’re still playing this game of both sides-ism?

Historically, journalists would avoid using the word “lie” or calling someone a “liar” to preserve objectivity. But this debate over whether the media is being sufficiently objective is a Titanic-deck-chairs-style exercise in futility, because regardless of what they say, the opposition has absolutely no problem calling them liars. Trump has branded journalists “enemies of the people,” (myself included, as it’s now been more than two months since he put me on his enemies list), attacked their intelligence and character, bombarded them with baseless lawsuits, and has convinced at least half the country that the media is not to be trusted.

I want to go back in time for a second to a pearl clutching moment in legacy media’s recent history. In 2016, the New York Times ran the front page headline, “Trump Gives Up a Lie but Refuses to Repent,” after he finally abandoned the Obama birth certificate conspiracy. From the time Trump came down the golden escalator in 2015 until the end of his first time, the Times ran only 50 articles where the reporter used the word “lie,” according to the Columbia Journalism Review.

The Times’ decision in 2016 to run with the word “lie” was such an event it merited a whole other story about why they chose to do it. The paper’s political editor Carolyn Ryan explained how the word gets clearance. It was about the liar’s intention, when they “knowingly” fail to tell the truth. I’ll concede that typically it’s a high bar to prove what someone does or doesn’t know. But with Trump’s birther claims, the facts were so fundamentally obvious, the Times could comfortably clear the bar.

That was ten years ago.

We’ve now had a decade to observe Trump’s behavior and it’s become clear that the truth is whatever serves him in any particular moment.

So my question is, why is legacy media clinging to an outdated set of ethics? We live in a different world than when the Times’ editorial board pulled that all nighter before clicking “send” on “lie.” The approach needs to evolve. These legacy institutions are playing by the rules of a game Trump rigged.

The tragic irony of legacy media’s insistence on neutrality is that our free press depends on the preservation of democracy to exist; if Trump got his way and ushered in the autocracy that he so desires, there would be no protections for a free press. I would contend that the media has an obligation to be biased— in favor of democracy.

So no, our hands are not and must not be tied by a ceremonial commitment to a set of vintage ethics divorced from reality. My commitment isn’t to conceptual “objectivity.” My commitment is to the truth. Even if that’s inconvenient for the Republican Party.

F.C.C. chair Brendan Carr called for a review of the broadcasting licenses, allegedly in response to ABC’s diversity and inclusion programs. But the threat came on the heels of some jokes Jimmy Kimmel told that angered the president.

The company’s court filing said, “The retaliation against ABC is a signal to every media company in the country: Accommodate the administration’s view of what news coverage should look like or pay the price.”

The irony is, ABC already “paid the price.” Last year, the company shelled out $16 million to settle a meritless libel lawsuit with Trump. I called that what it was: a bribe. Now, a little over a fiscal year later, ABC seems to be looking at the books and realizing that the ROI on that move is turning out to be less than zero.

I will never understand why these huge corporations refuse to acknowledge objective reality: paying Trump doesn’t buy you anything. All it does is teach him that you’re willing to pay, and next time, he’ll get you to pay more. ABC probably thought last year’s settlement was an investment in favorable treatment by the Trump administration. But they got the same bang for your buck as an investment in anything Trump slaps his name on. Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump Bibles, Trump Watches… they’re all scams. Why would this be any different? ABC is learning this now, the hard way. Too bad they didn’t figure it out $16 million ago.

This fight with ABC is a sideshow to the main event: it’s just one more front in Trump’s war on free and fair elections. The F.C.C. is threatening to pull broadcast licenses in eight local markets: New York, L.A., Chicago, Philadelphia, Houston, San Francisco, Raleigh-Durham, and Fresno. These are huge media markets. Cutting them off from one of the few major news providers ahead of the midterms makes it that much harder for voters to make informed decisions about who to cast a ballot for in November.

The reason for all this is obvious: Trump is scared. He knows he can’t win this election on the merits, so he’s trying to rig the game. Going after the media is of a piece with his other obsession: passing the SAVE Act, which would gut voting rights and make it much harder to vote. When you can’t win fairly, you try to win unfairly.

I feel like a broken record calling this textbook authoritarianism, but it’s important that we continue to call it out when we see it. And that’s not just symbolic; there’s evidence that it actually makes a difference. Just Security reported this week that challenging an authoritarian regime’s information control - censorship and clamping down on free speech - is actually more effective than sanctions, diplomacy, and military exercises.

The single most important thing a regime needs to do to survive is to control the narrative. That’s why in Russia, you see journalists murdered and disappeared. In China, they throttle the internet. In Iran, they crack down on protests. Autocrats do not mess around when it comes to neutralizing threats to the approved narrative.

And those countries absolutely hate when they get called out on it. Just Security’s report showed that criticizing Russia’s media censorship ratcheted up state-sponsored propaganda there even more than conducting military exercises. That’s just how important it is for these autocrats to control the narrative.

So Trump is showing his ass here. It’s obvious that the reason he’s siccing Brendan Carr on ABC in an attempt to take their news off the air is to prevent anything he doesn’t like from being reported. He needs to control the narrative, or he risks losing the election. And he knows it.

In the meantime, while ABC learns a lesson that they should’ve understood 18 months ago, independent media continues to serve as an effective bulwark against this administration. I have now been on Trump’s enemies list for nearly two months, but unlike legacy media, I will never capitulate to this White House. I answer solely to readers like you who demand more of those with platforms than kowtowing to autocrats for self-preservation.

“During that time you have cast zero votes, engaged in no official activities, and aside from two photos and corresponding statements, have made no effort to communicate with your Kentucky constituents or the nation,” he wrote.

I appreciate his tone: straight to the point. And the point is that if McConnell can’t prove that he’s fit to serve, he needs to resign so that someone else can step in and serve the people of Kentucky. A doctor’s note isn’t going to cut it. No more questionable proof-of-life photos that may or may not be AI generated. We need McConnell on the mic.

Beshear went a step further, asking Senate Majority Leader John Thune to investigate McConnell’s condition and, pending the findings, begin the process of replacing him.

The irony of the whole situation is almost too much.

For 38 years, Mitch McConnell’s signature move has been rewriting the rules. The guy defies the laws of physics with the way he’d bend - but, crucially, not break - institutional rules to his will. Think back to when he blocked Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court, arguing that the Senate couldn’t confirm justices in an election year. Cut to: months later, he pushed through Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation just weeks before the same election. He wielded a pen like a sword to chop up Senate norms whenever it served his - and the Republicans’- interests.

Back to that irony: 43 days into a major health crisis, he’s at the mercy of those same institutional norms that might force him out, only this time he’s not there to work them over.

But, of course, he and his party planned for this.

Republicans have a vested interest in keeping McConnell trapped in purgatory. His Senate seat remains technically occupied, maintaining the Republican majority, and blocking a costly (and potentially cataclysmic) special election. That’s why you’re not hearing anything from Republicans on this. They’re content with a couple of photos, which frankly prove nothing, and some boilerplate statements, because they preserve the status quo.

Beshear isn’t a fan of the cheap theatrics. He’s demanding the GOP to essentially shit or get off the pot: either produce evidence McConnell can do the job or cop to the fact that they’ve turned a veteran politician into a glorified seat filler, all to entrench their Republican majority.

That said, Beshear’s ultimatum lacks teeth - and that’s thanks to Kentucky Republicans, with an assist from McConnell himself. Because of a new law passed in 2024, the Democratic governor can’t appoint a replacement; Kentucky mandates his seat be filled by special election— but only if it’s vacated before August 3. And McConnell’s office knows this, which is why they’re running out the clock with as little information as possible. It’s a fitting end to Mitch McConnell’s career (and life)— conferring unfair advantage onto Republicans, no matter how cynical it looks.

Thank you to everyone who preordered the book, bought a copy, recommended it, or helped spread the word. Your support made this possible, and I’m incredibly grateful.

This is just another reminder that independent creators can thrive because of audiences like this one. Thank you for believing in this work and for making it possible for me to keep doing it.

Now I’d like to pay it forward by highlighting a new book by a fellow independent creator whose work I think you’ll enjoy.

My friend and fellow White House “Media Offender,” David Pakman, has a new book coming out called Pay Attention: How the Algorithms and Media Wars are Suppressing Truth and Rewiring Your Brain.

If you’ve followed David’s work over the years, you already know he has a talent for cutting through noise and explaining not just what’s happening in politics, but why it’s happening. Pay Attention takes that idea even further, exploring how today’s media environment, social platforms, and algorithms shape the information we consume, the beliefs we form, and ultimately the decisions we make.

It’s an important book for anyone trying to make sense of the modern information ecosystem, and I think you’re going to get a lot out of it.

If you’re planning to read it, I’d encourage you to preorder a copy.

People often don’t realize just how important preorders are for authors. They help build momentum before a book launches, signal demand to retailers, increase visibility, and ultimately put the book in front of readers who might not have discovered it otherwise.

It’s one of the most meaningful ways to support an author before publication day arrives.

You can preorder Pay Attention here:

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✍️ Signed copies of Pay Attention are still available while supplies last. So grab one while you can!

Once again, thank you for making The Day After a New York Times bestseller and for continuing to support independent creators. None of this happens without readers like you, and I’m grateful to have you along for the journey.

— Brian