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tariffs DUMBEST TRADE WAR EPSTEIN

INVEST JRNL ON ACTIV SUPPRESS 1ST AMEND ~ ICE

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YT 2 26 PRAISE FOR BRK STORY ON ---? EPSTEIN? NOEM PLANE?

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AN 10 26

According to a new exclusive report by the Wall Street Journal published on Thursday, the Department of Justice is seeking to relitigate the legacy of disgraced former President Richard Nixon. “For nearly two years, the Justice Department has made it a priority to investigate people who previously investigated President Trump,” writes the Journal. Now, “the department is reviewing whether the special prosecutor’s office that investigated the famed Watergate break-in committed misconduct, according to people familiar with the matter, more than half a century after that scandal led to Nixon’s resignation.”

According to the Journal, Geoff Shepard – a former Nixon aide turned Watergate historian and revisionist – recently delivered a two-hour presentation at Justice Department headquarters that laid out his theory that the deep state took Nixon down. The title of his 78-page slide deck was “Watergate As Lawfare," and the language used by Shepard is notably similar to that wielded by Trump when complaining about investigations against him, as he has long asserted that “deep state” actors have waged “lawfare” against him on behalf of his opponents.

“The review comes at a moment of renewed interest in the Nixon legacy,” writes the Journal. “Republicans see in the combative former president, who was loathed by the press and besieged by investigations, a historical analogue for Trump. During remarks at the Nixon Presidential Library this summer, Vice President JD Vance made the comparison explicit.” In Vance’s estimation, “If you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon, it’s not all that different from what the same groups of people — the same institutions — tried to do to Donald Trump in the first Trump administration. There is a parallel.”

The Journal reports that a senior Justice Department official invited Shepard to come to Justice Department headquarters and make his case before the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal watchdog that investigates allegations of misconduct. Ironically, notes the Journal, “the office itself is a product of the Watergate era, one of a number of changes aimed at shielding criminal investigations from White House influence.” Shepard has previously requested an investigation into his theories during the Biden Administration, but was denied.

“Shepard has served as a sort of godfather for the Watergate revisionists,” writes the Journal. “Mainstream scholars have long concluded that Watergate generated a genuine constitutional crisis and that Nixon, not those who investigated him, was guilty of a malfeasance which not only doomed his presidency but also led to overhauls that significantly curtailed executive power. Nixon’s tenure has been of growing interest to Trump, Vance and the larger conservative movement. Trump has asked former Nixon aides on several occasions why Nixon resigned rather than fight it out. The current president also has moved to roll back many post-Watergate overhauls, challenging limits on presidential authority to fire inspectors general and career civil servants.”

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WSJ NO LNX

‘The Boss Wants This Money’: Inside Trump’s Unprecedented Fundraising Operation

Meredith O’Rourke, nicknamed ‘princess of darkness,’ carries out president’s desire to wring hundreds of millions from companies for his projects

Josh Dawsey

Dana Mattioli

Annie Linskey

and

Emily Glazer

July 30, 2026

WASHINGTON—Almost every night in the White House, President Trump calls his fundraiser, Meredith O’Rourke, for an update.

Trump asks O’Rourke which companies and donors have cut checks and which haven’t, and for how much. He often asks her to make much larger financial requests than she was planning—for some donors the ask is $5 million, for others it is $50 million. And the president gives her names to call, often including people who have recently met with him, according to people with knowledge of the calls.

“This is very important to the president. He’s asked me to call you and ask you for this donation,” O’Rourke has relayed on phone calls with companies, persistently following up with them. In some calls, she has referred to Trump as the boss, saying “the boss wants this money.” In turn, Trump has called her the “princess of darkness” because she is such a “killer” with donors, according to people who have heard his comments.

SoftBank donated $50 million toward Trump’s presidential library. Apple cut a check for around $25 million toward his White House ballroom project, while Microsoft gave around $10 million and Amazon chipped in around $5 million, according to people familiar with the contributions. Meta Platforms recently gave $10 million to a Trump-aligned political committee, people familiar said, on top of a multimillion donation to the ballroom and a prior $22 million payment to the planned presidential library.

Trump stands out for taking personal control of the fundraising, and no sitting American president has ever raised these amounts for his pet projects. At the same time, companies have paid new attention to the White House as Trump has gotten involved in regulatory decisions that once were made by independent agencies, dramatically shifting the balance of power across Washington.

Trump has been demanding large checks from companies for a range of political and legacy projects—telling executives and lobbyists that their companies should give $25 million or $50 million. He has sometimes offered donors special access.

Aerial view of construction at the White House, with a helipad being built on the South Lawn and a ballroom under construction on the right.

Construction on the helipad and the ballroom at the White House this month. Rahmat Gul/Associated Press

No laws prohibit presidents from raising unlimited sums of money for nonprofits, like the ones used for the ballroom and his presidential library, his super PAC or political issue committees. For most of these types of transactions, public disclosure of donors isn’t required and reporting on spending is infrequent.

All told, the second-term president has raised more than $800 million since returning to office, according to an updated Wall Street Journal analysis.

Some of the money is earmarked for specific projects, including the White House ballroom and the Freedom 250 funds for the nation’s birthday celebrations, but Trump has floated using funds in other ways. The president, at the dinner thanking contributors to the ballroom project, said, “We’ll have money left over, and we’ll use that for something…maybe for the arch or something else that will come.”

Interviews with dozens of donors, executives, lobbyists, Trump advisers and others indicate a staggering fundraising and influence operation, with Trump at the center of it all. The president closely tracks who gives, aides said, repeatedly assigning O’Rourke with big asks that she has told others make her uncomfortable. Danielle Alvarez, an outside spokeswoman for Trump and O’Rourke, said it was “laughable” that O’Rourke had ever been uncomfortable with a request.

Chevron was asked to give $50 million this year. The oil company gave millions, but far less than the requested amount. Several top Washington lobbyists have been asked to raise $50 million or more, including from their clients, for Trump projects.

Meta executives convened a series of calls among themselves to discuss strategy after being repeatedly asked to give money to various Trump funds. The company has donated to the inauguration, the ballroom and two Easter events. About $22 million of Meta’s money went to the library after the social-media company agreed to settle a lawsuit Trump had filed for suspending his accounts.

Meta also wrote a $10 million check to Securing American Greatness, a political committee aligned with Trump that highlights conservative issues such as lowering taxes and reducing crime. Contributions to Securing American Greatness aren’t publicly reported, unlike contributions to super PACs, which disclose donors in regular filings.

When some donors have been put on the phone with Trump after giving millions, they expected to receive thank yous, but instead were asked for more money, people familiar with the calls said. In one case, O’Rourke asked an executive to cut a $1 million check to a Trump entity just days after he’d attended a thank you dinner for a separate multimillion-dollar donation he’d made to the president’s ballroom, according to a person familiar with the exchange.

“Trump is shattering all fundraising paradigms in regards to hitting up corporate America for donations. The scope is mind-bogglingly large,” said Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University. “We used to talk about the Lincoln bedroom being for sale, but this is just a wholesale money trough that’s totally different.” Critics alleged in the 1990s that the Clinton administration allowed overnight stays in the White House’s Lincoln bedroom in exchange for campaign contributions.

Place setting at a dinner for US President Donald Trump, with a name card reading "The President."

A place setting for the White House dinner for ballroom donors in October. andrew caballero-reynolds/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

In the Rose Garden on a warm April evening, some of the president’s biggest donors mingled with top White House aides and the president. Some of the guests received special tours, including of the Oval Office at night. “Have you ever seen anything like this?” Trump said on the tour, people with knowledge of the event said.

Then one businessman stood up. It was the reclusive billionaire Timothy Mellon, who has donated millions of dollars to Trump causes—even in the form of solid gold, some of the people said. Mellon has contributed more than $100 million to MAGA Inc., Trump’s super PAC.

He gave a toast to the president, several Rose Garden attendees said. He called Trump the “greatest president in my lifetime.” His remarks drew polite applause from the Fortune 100 executives arrayed around him.

At another Rose Garden dinner, Google co-founder Sergey Brin was seen sitting next to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles.

The White House referred requests for comment to Alvarez. She said the president is the “most successful fundraiser in modern political history” and that Trump plans to use the money to “help Republicans win big in the midterms, build an enduring political infrastructure and continue advancing innovative private-sector initiatives.”

“One thing has never changed. President Trump can’t be bought,” she said.

Change from first term

Trump’s stance on fundraising has dramatically changed from when he was first running for president. In 2015, he called political-action committees a “scam” and said he had disavowed them. His team sent letters to unauthorized super PACs that were supporting his election efforts, asking them to return their money to donors. “I am self-funding my campaign and therefore I will not be controlled by the donors, special interests and lobbyists who have corrupted our politics and politicians for far too long,” he said at the time.

Marc Short, Trump’s former director of legislative affairs, said, “One of the things that most rallied his crowds in 2016 was draining the swamp. The crowds would go wild.”

Short and other former administration officials said Trump had little interest in fundraising during his first term. “There definitely wasn’t a corporate shakedown like you see now,” he said, adding that the president during his first term didn’t aggressively seek money from companies with business before the government.

The Mystery Money Powering Trump’s Second Term

Trump would sometimes berate aides for signing up too many donors to take photos on “click lines” and would leave events as soon as he finished speaking. In the first term, he regularly complained that the money went to entities such as the Republican National Committee that he didn’t control, and viewed it as an obligation.

In 2020, Trump raised money for his re-election campaign but wasn’t notably aggressive about it.

Wiles had to persuade Trump during the 2024 campaign to do fundraising calls. But he embraced big money on the campaign trail, even asking oil executives to give $1 billion at a Mar-a-Lago event in April 2024. At one point, he told donors he wouldn’t have lunch for less than $5 million, according to audio from a 2024 fundraiser reviewed by the Journal.

O’Rourke, a well-known fundraiser in Florida, was part of Trump’s 2016 and 2020 operations. In the 2024 cycle, she was tapped to lead fundraising for the whole campaign. She opted to drive six hours between the Trump campaign headquarters in Palm Beach and her homebase in northwestern Florida instead of flying so she could spend the time on back-to-back calls with donors. Driving also ensured she wouldn’t be out of touch for the hourlong flight, according to people familiar with the campaign.

Eric Trump, Susie Wiles, Steve Witkoff, and Meredith O'Rourke listen at a news conference.

Eric Trump, Susie Wiles, Steve Witkoff and Meredith O'Rourke listened to President-elect Trump speak at Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 7, 2025. Evan Vucci/Associated Press

After the 2024 election, Trump realized how many donors and companies were lining up outside his Mar-a-Lago club to cut multimillion-dollar checks and told O’Rourke to immediately start soliciting donations, advisers said. She was planning to slow down operations. Strike while the iron is hot, Trump told O’Rourke, according to Trump advisers and an account the president has repeatedly given in private settings.

O’Rourke isn’t a government employee, although she is often at Trump’s side in the White House and elsewhere. She sometimes sits in on meetings, including when Trump meets with corporate executives about issues that affect them. O’Rourke also travels with top officials on Air Force One. She often posts photos of herself with Trump, including in the Oval Office, on her social-media accounts and has referred to Trump as a mentor.

At a meeting with tobacco executives in May at Trump’s golf club in Jupiter, Fla., the president promised to do much of what executives wanted on policy related to vaping and the Food and Drug Administration. He also took in millions of dollars in contributions for his political committees. O’Rourke sat in on the meeting. Shortly after the meeting, the FDA lifted restrictions on some flavored vaping products, and the FDA’s chief was gone.

At the time, White House spokesman Kush Desai said, “The only guiding factor behind the Trump administration’s health policymaking is Gold Standard Science. FDA’s regulatory treatment of nicotine pouches and vapes is rooted in recent evidence that has found they can help adults quit smoking.”

O’Rourke was appointed a director at Trump Media & Technology, owner of Truth Social, and named to the board of the National Park Foundation, which oversees the Trump-aligned group that raised money for Freedom 250.

Trump, tapping his real-estate sales roots, has conversations with O’Rourke about how to specifically sell various projects, giving her pointers on how to pitch the library, according to people familiar with the conversations. Trump has told allies that he doesn’t want to struggle to raise money for his library the way Joe Biden has. Plans for the Trump library show a glass-walled skyscraper that is expected to also have a hotel.

“She’s a combination of tough but charming, and she absolutely has the president’s 100% trust and respect,” said Brian Ballard, a top Washington lobbyist who first worked with her in Florida in the 1990s. “She literally is the most talented fundraising professional I’ve dealt with, and I’ve dealt with a ton of them.”

In the spring, even as Republicans were gearing up to raise money for the midterms, O’Rourke began sending out solicitations for a new Trump initiative called the National Garden of American Heroes Foundation. The money will be used to remake a golf course in Washington and build a statue garden.

Candlelight dinners

O’Rourke sends out invites to prominent CEOs and their handlers and lobbyists to attend $1 million-per-head candlelight dinners at the White House or one of Trump’s properties, where guests are given extraordinary access to the president. Many of the events are arranged by industry, such as cryptocurrency or manufacturing.

O’Rourke often attends the dinners and takes notes about what the president promises and what the donor says, and she will filter the notes to other White House officials. Trump will often ask the donors to follow up with O’Rourke, attendees said.

Guests listen to President Donald Trump at a dinner for donors to the White House ballroom.

Guests listened to Trump speak at the ballroom-donor dinner at the White House. John McDonnell/Associated Press

At times, donors with particular agendas have shown up, such as a marijuana CEO pushing for changes in drug laws or the CEO of Pfizer who talked up experimental cancer drugs.

A regular presence at Trump’s dinners are cryptocurrency executives. The president has made more than $1.4 billion from his family’s crypto-related ventures since taking office, his financial disclosures show, and has often told the cryptocurrency crowd how he has made them richer.

The president sits at the center point of a horseshoe-shaped table and often stays for two hours. At Mar-a-Lago, he sometimes gives private tours of the gilded lobby. At an April event at Trump’s winery in Charlottesville, a TV was wheeled in so donors could watch with Trump the progress of astronauts returning to Earth, attendees said.

The president is often solicitous and warm at these fundraisers, asking each CEO to introduce themself. There are regular guests, such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman. Last year, OpenAI co-founder and president Greg Brockman and his wife personally contributed $25 million to Trump’s super PAC.

Trump has surprised donors at how long he will stay and talk. Within 24 hours of launching the war in Iran, he attended a lengthy $1 million-a-plate fundraiser in Florida. Many expected he would cancel, and the event was interrupted at one point for him to learn that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed. After that, Trump listened to a range of corporate concerns and even engaged in a lengthy back-and-forth with Verizon’s CEO about what kind of cable was best.

Trump also asks lobbyists to set up meetings at his golf clubs and properties. The lunches are often lighthearted, with celebrity athletes stopping by the table. There, he often meets with executives over burgers, before telling the lobbyist later how much the client should give.

“What can I do to help you?” Trump has said at multiple events, according to attendees. “What do you need?” he asked CEOs at a Florida event.

President Trump with John Ratcliffe, Marco Rubio, and Susie Wiles at Mar-a-Lago, overseeing "Operation Epic Fury."

Trump and advisers at Mar-a-Lago on Feb. 28, when the U.S. launched strikes on Iran. Daniel Torok/White House/Getty Images

Senate Democrats have noted that some of the corporate donors have later been the beneficiaries of regulatory changes. “Money well spent! Your company’s millions of dollars in recent investment in President Trump’s political operation appears to have enabled tobacco manufacturers to circumvent federal law and unlawfully sell unauthorized e-cigarettes,” six Democratic senators wrote in a June letter to Altria’s CEO, saying the company contributed to the president’s ballroom and inauguration.

The company responded to the senators, describing policies it said would protect youth and reduce tobacco-related harm and saying it welcomed an opportunity to discuss the issue with legislators at greater length.

Government business

Executives said Trump is one of the most accessible presidents in recent times. In private, they acknowledged that this administration is much more transactional than prior ones. If a company encounters an issue with the federal government that comes to Trump’s attention, he will want to know how much money the company gave, according to a person familiar with the matter. At times he’ll rib the corporate leaders who haven’t met the goals he set, the person said.

Several CEOs and board members said they believe there is a link between their contributions and their access to the president. One chairman of a publicly traded company said that if you give the money, you know you are either checked on a list, or crossed off a list if you don’t.

Some lobbyists said they tell their clients to be noncommittal when Trump asks for a large donation and to say they’ll get back to him and his team. Many of the corporate donors have business before the government, are seeking federal contracts or are lobbying on a range of issues from trade policy to defense policy and appropriations.

Lockheed Martin gave more than $10 million in late 2025 and early 2026 related to America’s 250th anniversary and infrastructure projects in the Washington area, people familiar with the matter said.

A company spokesperson said “Lockheed Martin has a long history of supporting projects in both the Washington, DC, area and across the country.” The spokesperson added that its engagement with the government is guided by compliance standards and follows applicable laws and regulations.

In June, the Pentagon awarded Lockheed a contract worth up to $35 billion to make missiles to replace U.S. stockpiles drawn down by the war with Iran. A few weeks later, Trump revealed that Lockheed had agreed to pay roughly $5 million toward a new helipad he is now building at the White House.

Workers constructing a helipad on the South Lawn of the White House.

Workers assembled the presidential seal on the helipad. Finn Gomez/Getty Images

Freedom 250, the Trump group that organized anniversary celebrations, raised more than $50 million, according to people familiar with the matter, and invited donors and other participants to a wine reception at the White House with Trump in the spring. Social-media platform TikTok gave around $2 million toward Freedom 250, according to people familiar with the matter. Other donors contributing more than $1 million each toward the anniversary included Oracle and ExxonMobil.

When SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son’s team approached the White House offering support, they were told to give funds to the presidential library. SoftBank gave $50 million to the project, according to people familiar with the matter.

One of Son’s ideas for the space is to use a portion of that money to create an area in the library dedicated to the relationship between the U.S. and Japan, one of the people said.

Trump has taken in money from deep-pocketed companies and their owners through lawsuits or threats of litigation. The president has told his lawyers that he wants bigger payouts from media companies and others he believes have wronged him, according to people familiar with the discussions. ABC News and CBS parent Paramount have reached settlements with the president that included around $15 million each for the Trump library to end lawsuits.

Trump has filed a lawsuit against Dow Jones, the publisher of the Journal, alleging he was defamed by an article about a birthday letter to disgraced financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. A Dow Jones spokesman said, “We have full confidence in the rigor and accuracy of our reporting, and will vigorously defend against any lawsuit.”

Companies have traded notes about what Wall Street analyst Blair Levin calls “The Trump Transaction Tax,” or a payment outside of the cost of normal business. “Another way of saying it,” Levin said, “is simply that we’re replacing the free market with the market for Trump’s affections.”

Donald Trump speaks at a fundraiser for a White House ballroom expansion.

The dinner for ballroom donors was held in the East Room of the White House. Jim LoScalzo – Pool via CNP/Zuma Press

In October, Trump hosted companies and donors that contributed to the ballroom project for a dinner in the White House’s East Room. Standing at a lectern with a model of the planned ballroom next to him, the president recounted the ease of his fundraising.

“So many of you have been really, really generous,” Trump said. “I mean, a couple of you, I was sitting here and saying, ‘Sir, would $25 million be appropriate?’ They said, ‘I’ll take it.’”

He added: “It doesn’t take too many 25s to get it done.”

“Chief executives throughout the history have contributed to making the White House special,” Trump said, “and nothing of this magnitude has been done.”

Appeared in the August 1, 2026, print edition as '‘The Boss Wants This Money’: Trump’s Fundraising Operation'.

Josh Dawsey is chief political correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He began his career at the Journal and re-joined the newspaper in 2025 after working for eight years at The Washington Post. Josh was part of a team of journalists at The Post that won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2022 and a team that won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. He is the winner of the 2026 Aldo Beckman Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage and a two-time recipient of the White House Correspondents Association award for deadline news reporting.

Josh is a lecturer at the Allbritton Journalism Institute and the enthusiastic owner of a rambunctious rescue dog named Pepper.

Dana Mattioli is a Pulitzer Prize-winning technology investigations and enterprise reporter for The Wall Street Journal in New York. She does deep dives on technology, politics, antirust and other subjects. Prior to this role, she led investigations into Amazon's business practices, market power and antitrust issues. She is the author of the book "The Everything War: Amazon’s Ruthless Quest to Own the World and Remake Corporate Power," which was longlisted as one of the best business books of 2024 by the Financial Times and named a best book of 2024 by Publishers Weekly.

Dana was part of a WSJ team that won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for coverage of Elon Musk. She was part of a team that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2020 for its investigation into Amazon, and was the winner of the 2021 Gerald Loeb Award for Beat Reporting. In 2021, she received the WERT Prize, an award from the Women’s Economic Round Table that honors excellence in comprehensively reported business journalism, and received a Front Page Award for her Amazon coverage. In 2026, she received the Nellie Bly Award from the Newswomen's Club of New York.

Dana earlier covered mergers & acquisitions, where she and colleagues broke some of the largest deals ever recorded, including Pfizer’s $150 billion deal to buy Allergan. In 2016, she won a Gerald Loeb Award in the breaking news category for coverage of the Dow-DuPont merger. She was a finalist for the 2015 Larry Birger Young Business Journalist Award.

Before covering M&A, she reported on retail companies and produced a string of front-page articles and scoops on the troubles at Kodak and J.C. Penney as well as the M&A exploits of various retailers.

Dana started at the Journal in 2006. She graduated from American University in Washington, D.C., with degrees in journalism and literature.

Annie Linskey is a White House reporter for The Wall Street Journal, a role she assumed in 2022 after covering national politics for the Washington Post, the Boston Globe and Bloomberg News. Her reporting spans three presidential campaigns, four administrations and four continents. She was part of the team of reporters writing about President Trump’s ties to Jeffery Epstein—a body of work that won the Katharine Graham Award for Courage and Accountability and was a finalist for the 2026 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Her reporting on Trump’s efforts to profit from the presidency was recognized with an honorable mention from the Sabew Best in Business Awards.

Prior to that, her reporting on the Biden administration and the president’s decline in office was recognized with the Gerald R. Ford Prize for distinguished reporting on the presidency, the National Press Club’s Lee Walczak Award for political analysis and the New York Press Club’s National Award.

She started her journalism career at the Baltimore Sun more than two decades ago, where she focused on crime and later city and state politics. She also freelanced from Cambodia, covering the Khmer Rouge war crimes trials.

Emily Glazer is a Pulitzer Prize-winning enterprise reporter focusing on business leaders, power and influence for The Wall Street Journal in New York. Her articles often focus on the intersection of business and politics, CEO succession, board shakeups or regulatory investigations. Emily also contributes to the Journal’s Personal Board of

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'We found the communists': WSJ exposes Trump’s 'unprecedented' state capitalism

According to the Wall Street Journal, President Donald Trump has sought to fuse government with business and create a “state capitalism” that is “unprecedented” in recent history. Many commenters have suggested, however, that “this is not state capitalism” but “another ism MAGA is always yelling about.”

As the Journal explains, Trump played an instrumental role in Apple CEO Tim Cook’s decision to go into business with the microchip producer Intel, which was struggling after sitting out the early AI boom. Trump pushed Cook to hire Intel to manufacture some of Apple’s new device chips, and Intel has since shown a dramatic turnaround — a financial windfall that has benefited Trump personally, as he bought a “significant share” of Intel stock before its value shot up after the deal with Apple was announced last month.

What’s more, writes the Journal, “the Trump administration, now Intel’s largest shareholder, has also taken a hands-on approach to the company, keeping close tabs on the development of new manufacturing technologies and offering strategic guidance. This type of state capitalism is unprecedented in recent tech history.”

While Trump described his administration’s involvement with Intel and other companies merely as “help,” other commenters see something else in the situation.

“I think we found the communists,” posted HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Date. “Something something communism,” posted Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson. “Seems kind of socialist,” noted journalist Brahm Resnik. “State ownership,” came another response. “And he calls Mamdani a commie.”

Trump has long used the specter of communism as a talking point at his rallies, but has railed against it with greater frequency lately as he has flailed for a scapegoat to distract from his historically low approval rating and talk of a blue wave in the coming midterms. On Monday, for example, he shared a video calling for the deportation of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and other “hardcore communist b——.”

But as many have noted, there is no shortage of hypocrisy in Trump’s attacks. A year ago, the CATO Institute wrote that Trump’s policies mirror the “populist authoritarian movement” spoken of by libertarian thinker Roy A Childs Jr. when in 1982 he warned that the New American Right was working to build a country that would be “hostile to free markets and committed to some form of managed economy. Forty-three years later, Donald Trump is president, and the Wall Street Journal’s chief economics commentator describes his policies as ‘state capitalism,’ a ‘hybrid between socialism and capitalism in which the state guides the decisions of nominally private enterprises.’” The Journal takes things even further, arguing that Trump is “imitating the Chinese Communist Party by extending political control ever deeper into the economy.”

Another example came last week, when Trump announced the launch of his “Freedom Fuel Network,” which imposed price controls on a series of Philadelphia gas stations, prompting a slew of comparisons to the “ism” so vocally reviled by Trump. As one commenter said of the news, “I thought we were fighting against communism?”

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BEAST

The Daily Beast

Key Iraq War Architect at White House as Iran War Rages

Sarah Ewall-Wice

:{Fri, 6 March 2026

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was spotted at the White House attending a roundtable discussion on college sports in the East Room on March 06, 2026 after Trump launched a war with Iran.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was spotted at the White House on Friday as President Donald Trump demanded “unconditional surrender” by Iran.

The timing of Rice’s visit to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue turned heads as she served as national security adviser to President George W. Bush and was a major proponent for the Iraq invasion in 2003, while claiming Iraq was lying about disarmament.

Rice went on to serve as Bush’s secretary of state from 2005 to 2009 throughout the ongoing Iraq War.

The former top Republican administration official has not served in the government for some time, but just Thursday, Rice appeared on Fox News, where she urged President Donald Trump to take care of Iran once and for all.

She also made some of the same arguments as the White House for “Operation Epic Fury” despite the death toll rising and the war escalating as Iran strikes countries throughout the region in retaliation for the U.S. attack.

“The most important thing is to recognize that Iran has been at war with us for at least 47 years, all the way from 1979,” Rice told Special Report with Bret Baier.

She insisted that to say the Iran regime is not a threat is “ahistorical” and said “they have been a threat for a long time.”

The former secretary of state noted that there is “uncertainty with any military operation and what the aftermath might be.”

While Rice acknowledged there are concerns about what comes next, she argued: “If you can render Iran essentially incapable of military action against us and against our allies, that’s worthy, and I think what they’re trying to do is to neuter Iran as a military power in the region.”

The former top Bush official did say she believes the question of making sure the administration does not unintentionally expand on the operation’s goals, or get “mission creep,” was important, but insisted taking care of Iran’s military capabilities is very important.

The investigation

The Journal’s team analyzed more than 200 videos associated with allegations of assault against ICE and Border Patrol agents, using both police body camera footage and bystander recordings from social media. Many of the videos cast doubt on the federal government’s claims that agents were assaulted.

The Journal also reviewed more than 100,000 posts on X, posts made in the last year by accounts linked to government agencies and senior government officials.

Each time the government identified a person on a post, theJournal tracked that case through the legal system to see what charges were brought, under what statute, whether the charges were later modified, and what happened to the person in the case.

One of the cases they investigated was that of Sydney Lori Reid, a 44-year-old veterinary assistant in D.C. and a U.S. citizen.

In July, Reid went to a jail to witness an immigration enforcement action. Federal officers had gone there to arrest two migrant men, and Reid said she felt a duty to document it.

As Reid began videotaping, an agent grabbed her and pinned her to a wall. Reid was then surrounded by several federal law enforcement officials. One of them was an FBI agent wearing a face covering and an FBI vest. Two others were ICE officers, dressed in plain clothes, plaid shirts, and khaki pants.

Reid was handcuffed and told she was being arrested for interfering with their operation. Videos reviewed by Critchfield and her team cast doubt on the agents’ claims.

Reid was then placed in a government vehicle and transferred to federal custody. Like many American citizens who wind up in the crosshairs of DHS, she was accused of assault.

The government alleges she assaulted an FBI agent on the basis of scrapes on the agent’s hands, but the scrapes occurred in the process of putting handcuffs on Reid.

The government later charged Reid with felony assault of a federal official, a charge punishable with up to 20 years in prison — a serious federal charge that’s being applied far more broadly now than at any time in recent history.

When Reid was being arrested, she dropped her phone, but the phone was still recording. An agent picked up the phone and put it into the same vehicle that she was riding in on her way to detention.

One officer says: “We’re at the D.C. jail. We’re at the D.C. jail. We have an agitator in custody for ...”

Reid was handcuffed in the backseat. You can hear agents going back and forth about exactly how Reid had assaulted them. First, it was a raised knee, then an elbow.

Another officer: “Yeah, it appeared that there was an elbow that was ... When she was resisting, but she definitely interfered. So we have interfering and I’m going to get ...”

One of the ICE agents called her a stupid female as he was talking to a colleague: “Hey brother, are you good? I have to return to 1D and process this stupid female now that I f------ don’t want to process her.”

Reid was held by federal authorities for roughly two days. She wasn’t allowed to make a phone call during that time.

In the aftermath of her arrest, prosecutors tried to indict her, but that needed to be done through a grand jury, and the grand jury declined to indict her. They tried again before another grand jury, which also declined to indict her. Then they went back to a third grand jury, which declined to indict her.

This is almost unheard of. It showed both the resistance from the public to charge her based on the evidence and the government’s determination to bring charges in this case.

Prosecutors ultimately charged Reid with misdemeanor assault of an officer, a lesser offense that doesn’t require going through a grand jury. Reid was acquitted of that misdemeanor charge at trial.

The Trump Administration’s Strategy

Critchfield and her Journal team found that the push to charge more people for assaulting federal officers — as happened to Reid — is an administration-wide strategy.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and her Department of Justice have pledged to prosecute these cases aggressively. From the very beginning of Bondi’s tenure, starting on her first day in office, she issued a flurry of memos, including one that encouraged prosecutors to aggressively investigate any instances of violence against law enforcement or obstruction of law enforcement.

Gregory Bovino, then the head of Border Patrol, directed his agents to arrest anyone who touched them. “Arrest as many people that touch you as you want to. Those are the general orders all the way to the top, everybody f------ gets it if they touch you. You hear what I’m saying?”

In addition to an increasing number of prosecutions, the Department of Homeland Security has been using social media to exaggerate these alleged attacks, often with a warning to the public: “Don’t be like this person. If you behave in this way, we will come for you.” And they have posted people’s pictures and their full names, seeking to make an example out of these people even before they’re convicted of a crime.

This happened to Reid. A week after she was arrested, her mug shot and name went up on the official ICE account on X, along with the fact that she’s based in Washington, D.C., and a post that said, “Assault an officer or agent get arrested. It’s not rocket science.”

ICE also publicly alleged that Reid assaulted federal agents on behalf of two alleged international gang members.

The Purpose of This Strategy

The Journal’s investigation makes clear that the purpose of this strategy has been to intimidate and silence Americans who might otherwise protest what ICE and Border Patrol are doing.

ICE publicly describes many of these protesters as rioters, agitators, thugs, and terrorists.

Here’s Vice President JD Vance speaking of Renee Good’s death:

“I can believe that her death is a tragedy while also recognizing that it’s a tragedy of her own making and a tragedy of the far left who has marshaled an entire movement, a lunatic fringe against our law enforcement officers.”

And here’s then-DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on the death of Alex Pretti:

“This individual who came with weapons and ammunition to stop a law enforcement operation of federal law enforcement officers committed an act of domestic terrorism, that’s the facts.”

Renee Good was in her car when she was killed. Critchfield and her team found that federal government officials have accused 32 U.S. citizens of intentionally using their vehicles as weapons. DHS considers a vehicle to be a deadly weapon, justifying the use of force. Of those 32 drivers, only one pleaded guilty to an assault charge. Three had their cases dismissed; the rest were never charged.

TheJournal investigation found that in most cases where citizens were accused by the government, the outcome was similar to Reid’s.

181 citizens were accused by the government on X of attacking federal officers, but close to half of them were never even charged at all. When people werecharged, more often than not, the cases fell apart. Either they were acquitted or found not guilty at trial.

Fifteen people mentioned in government posts pleaded guilty before going to trial. Ten of whom pleaded guilty for lesser offenses than what the government initially charged them with.

Videos have often played major roles in contradicting the government’s case. Critchfield and her team viewed videos that repeatedly cast doubt on the government’s allegations. Protesters were often called violent rioters or professional agitators and accused of making physical contact in some way with agents, but video footage often showed immigration agents being the first to lay their hands on demonstrators.

TheJournal found that most of the government’s assault allegations against American protesters posted on X were unsubstantiated. Even federal prosecutors themselves acknowledged that in some cases, the evidence to back up these charges wasn’t there.

Federal prosecutors across the nation told Critchfield and her team that they are facing intense pressure to charge demonstrators and bystanders with crimes even when video evidence contradicts what officers initially claimed about what occurred, or in situations where they wouldn’t normally pursue federal charges.

The costs to those who are arrested are substantial. Even in cases where the person is exonerated, they must still deal with posting bail, securing defense attorneys, and taking days off from work to appear in court. In more extreme cases, people are doxed online and face death threats.

Reid says she’s been more hesitant about engaging in political speech, even though, as she put it, “Those are our rights as U.S. citizens and they’re being stifled.”

Conclusions

The Journal’sinvestigation concluded that:

“U.S. citizens are caught in the crosshairs of an aggressive government campaign to detain and demonize detractors, including by calling them terrorists, rioters, and agitators. The Department of Homeland Security, which was created in 2002 to protect Americans, has turned its force against U.S. citizens.”

By putting a public bull’s-eye on Americans whom the government accuses of assault, the Journal also found that the Trump administration is chilling First Amendment expression:

“People who had been accused publicly by the federal government of assaulting federal officers … are less likely to participate in protests and less likely to put themselves in situations where their name might be tracked…. There is a real pressure to crack down and send a message to people who the government views as perceived dissenters, even if video contradicts what agents have initially claimed happened.”

Again, let me remind you that this comes from The Wall Street Journal.

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.}:

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an 3 26

President Donald Trump can usually rely on The Wall Street Journal Editorial Board to support his economic programs, but on Tuesday the venerable newspaper slammed the Republican Party leader for being too “progressive.”

“Republicans want to show voters they’re doing something to ease housing costs,” the Editorial Board observed. “The result, alas, is a pork-filled bill hitting the Senate floor this week that is a big win for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and the political left.”

Describing the Senate’s 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act as “a melange of some 40 bills,” the editorial board took issue with a provision that bans large investors from purchasing single-family homes to rent.

“President Trump thinks the investor ban polls well and likes to say ‘people live in homes, not corporations,’” the Editorial Board observed. “But who does he think lives in rental homes—hedge fund managers? Most tenants are lower-income. The Senate bill could force many of them out of their homes.”

Arguing that Trump’s bill would bar most investors with 350 or more homes from purchasing new ones, while others would need to sell any properties they acquired under these exemptions within seven years, the Board argued that it is bad both for the investors and for renters.

“Smaller firms will likely exit the market because they couldn’t expand,” the Editorial Board argued. “If investors are forced to unload properties, where will their tenants go? Amherst estimates that roughly 85% of its tenants wouldn’t qualify for a mortgage because of credit constraints or other underwriting restrictions.”

In the name of achieving a political victory, the editorial board argued that “the White House is pressuring Senate Republicans to pass the bill and wants the House to accept it. But why do Republicans want to provide a down payment for Ms. Warren and fellow progressives to expand Washington control over housing in their states?”

This is not the first time the Journal has called out Trump’s economic programs. Earlier in March it pointed out that the February jobs report was “lousy,” adding that “the U.S. shed 92,000 jobs and revised down gains for January and December by a combined 69,000. The question is what to make of the declines.”

Other conservatives have also criticized Trump’s economic policies. Writing for the conservative-leaning publication The Bulwark, commentator Mona Charen denounced Trump’s tariffs and predicted they would cost the Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections.

“Voters are rarely able to connect policy to outcomes, but they have done so in the case of tariffs,” Charen said. “Back in 2024, Americans were about equally divided on the question of trade, with some favoring higher tariffs and roughly similar numbers opting for lower tariffs. Experience has changed their views.”

Indeed, Trump’s tariffs are so controversial that six Republican lawmakers joined their Democratic counterparts to vote for a bill to repeal Trump’s tariffs against Canada. Those lawmakers include Reps. Don Bacon of Nebraska, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Dan Newhouse of Washington, Kevin Kiley of California, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Jeff Hurd of Colorado.

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AN 2 26

WSJ warns Trump’s billionaire tax cut is hurting the US economy

The Wall Street Journalhas a history of loving tax cuts, but in a new report, they're warning that President Donald Trump's billionaire tax cuts are hurting the U.S. economy.

As recently as Dec. 31, the Journal was singing the praisesof the nine states in which people would pay less in taxes. A little over a month later, Carol Ryan wrote that when billionaires don't pay their taxes, "look at who picks up the tab."

"Wealth concentration is affecting the wider economy," the report said, and it "shows why the issue isn’t going away."

California is proposing a wealth tax, which WSJ is concerned about, but only because for many rich households, their money is tied to the stock market.

"This could mean the entire economy pays a steep price in the next market correction," the report said.

"California has the highest concentration of billionaires in the U.S. with 255 individuals, or slightly more than a fifth of the country’s billionaire population," the report said, citing the wealth-intelligence firm Altrata.

A proposal for a ballot measure in November would levy an amount "calculated based on whichever is the higher of a billionaire’s voting interest or economic interest in a company." It would be a one-time levy on the wealth of any California resident worth over $1 billion. The solution is an idea to fix the Medicaid shortfall left by the GOP's significant cuts to the program in the "One Big Beautiful Bill" measure passed last year.

The right-wing Tax Foundation claims it will hurt tech leaders.

The ultrarich could simply leave California if they're unhappy, which is what Elon Musk did when he moved SpaceX and Tesla to Texas. However, Musk claims he did it because he was angry over gender identity laws. The ballot measure must still collect signatures before it can be up for a vote.

The Journal noted that Google co-founder Sergey Brin left California for Florida and Lake Tahoe, Nevada. He also moved several LLCs to Nevada.

Far-right Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel suggested he might do the same.

The Journal claims that such threats from billionaires might be enough to convince California voters not to tax the ultrawealthy.

The Investment Migration Council wrote on its websitethat "tax avoidance is the main reason actor Yul Brynner, entrepreneur Eduardo Saverin and inventor Earl Tupper abandoned U.S. citizenship."

One of the biggest arguments Democrats made in 2022 was for adding more workers to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to focus on tax evasion by the wealthiest Americans, which costs the U.S. approximately $150 billion each year, CNBC reported.

The Journal expects that billionaire tax evasion will likely become a more significant issue as the U.S. economy continues to slump and the wealth gap grows.

Since 1990, the WSJ has reported that the top 0.1 percent of wage earners now hold a much larger share of U.S. wealth. In the past 26 years, it has grown 14.4 percent for them.

"Meanwhile, the bottom half of American households have lost ground. Their 2.5 percent cut of the country’s wealth has slipped from 3.5 percent in 1990," the report said.

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an 12 25

Trump’s 'willy-nilly' economic policy freezing out manufacturing jobs: WSJ

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AN 10 25

President Donald Trump wants a federal judge to allow his defamation suit against The Wall Street Journalto go forward because he says the newspaper's 2003 letter linking him to the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was “deliberate and malicious," Newsweekreports.

Trump also says he should be allowed to continue the case because the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper said his denial of the letter's legitimacy was 'false."

Newsweekreports that in a filing submitted October 20 in the Southern District of Florida, Trump’s lawyers said the Journaland its parent company, News Corp., along with Murdoch and senior editors, “prioritize gossip, clicks and profit over truth.”

Donald Trump filed a $10 billion defamation lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and its owner Rupert Murdoch in July over a story regarding a birthday letter Trump allegedly sent to Jeffrey Epstein in 2003. That article was titled “Jeffrey Epstein’s Friends Sent Him Bawdy Letters for a 50th Birthday Album. One Was From Donald Trump.”

In September, The Wall Street Journal filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, asserting that its reporting was accurate.

IFrame Content

The October filing responds to Trump's motion to dismiss the suit, and asserts the newspaper’s reporting was substantially true and protected by the First Amendment.

The president accuses the Journalof framing its coverage to make his denial appear untrue, Newsweekexplains.

“Although defendants included plaintiff’s denial, they did so in a way that made it seem as if plaintiff’s denial was false,” the filing states. “This kind of reckless disregard for the truth by defendants provides a sufficient basis for an inference of actual malice.”

Trump’s legal team also argues "the article was defamatory both per se— because it allegedly subjected him to 'hatred, disgust, ridicule, contempt or disgrace' — and per quod, requiring additional context to show harm to his reputation," Newsweek says.

The filing says the piece “wrongly and inextricably link[ed] President Trump to the disgraced Epstein,” and that the Journal’s use of phrases such as “one of them was Donald Trump” left readers with the impression that he was a willing participant in the birthday project.

Trump's attorneys also accuse the Journal of not being nice to the president.

"They claim the story’s 'mean-spirited tone' and the Journal’s alleged hostility toward Trump support an inference of malice," Newsweek says.

The Journal's lawyers have laughed off Trump's requests, saying, “This meritless lawsuit threatens to chill the speech of those who dare to publish content that the president does not like.”

Legal experts agree that theJournal has the upper hand here.

“In the case of The Wall Street Journal, it would literally have to be the case that they knew the letter was false or knew it didn’t exist or they had a really good reason to suspect it was forged but ignored it," Shawn Trier, a constitutional-law expert told ABC News

---

MMA

### Newsmax host says a minister shot in the head with a pepper ball by ICE is “actually an antifa member masquerading as a pastor”

10/10/25

NOTE CRM POD BROS MANTA INSURRECTION

### Right-wing media say Portland is a war zone under siege. On-the-ground coverage paints a different picture.

10/10/25

Right-wing media say Portland is a war zone under siege. On-the-ground coverage paints a different picture.

Local coverage has highlighted the peaceful nature of protests and the violent response of federal agents

Written by Noah Dowe & Pete Tsipis

Research contributions from Casey Wexler & Media Matters Staff

Published10/10/25

Updated10/10/25

Right-wing media claim that Portland’s protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement show a city “under siege” or “conquered by antifa,” but on-the-ground coverage, by both national media outlets and local media outlets, has revealed the opposite.

Multiple local broadcast outlets report that protests are relatively small and peaceful, with many demonstrators “in pajamas, sharing pastries, throwing a frisbee, and playing board games."

The Wall Street Journal reported that “a sergeant from the Portland Police Bureau filed his daily observations of the demonstrations outside an ICE facility. 'Saw 8 people out front and couldn’t even get one of them to flip me the bird,' he wrote. 'Very low energy.'”

In direct contrast to coverage from right-wing media, Portland residents and officials have emphasized that it's actually federal agents who have been engaging in “violent tactics” against protesters, including “shoving peaceful veterans and elderly people to the ground” and employing point-blank attacks with pepper spray and mace.

Protests in Portland were described as “low energy” until Trump and right-wing media started claiming otherwise

- Protests in Portland, ongoing for at least four months, have centered on an ICE facility in the southern part of the city. As reported by The Oregonian, protesters have “numbered in the few dozens on most nights and their activity has largely been confined to a two-block radius of the building’s front driveway.” Oregon Live, [10/4/25]

- :{:{Trump announced on September 27 that he would send “all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland,” which he described as “under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists.” Truth Social, [9/27/25]}:

- Trump’s move was seemingly encouraged by a month of dystopian coverage of Portland from right-wing media, which described the city as “under siege” and suggested it resembles “the French Revolution all over again.” Fox host Jesse Watters said that “every weekend is war” in Portland and suggested protesters “look pretty militaristic.” Media Matters, [9/29/25]

- According to The New York Times, federal officials described protests outside the Portland ICE facility as “low energy” until Trump’s post, after which “demonstrations had grown more intense … with more arrests and larger crowds than in preceding weeks.” According to the Times, reports from the Federal Protective Service in the days before the president’s post “offered no indication of a dangerous escalation of tensions, or unusual levels of protest activity that would prompt the level of alarm expressed by Mr. Trump.” The New York Times, [10/8/25]

- The Wall Street Journal wrote: “Daily reports from Portland police in the month leading up to Trump’s decision, on Sept. 27, to send federal troops into the city paint a different picture than public statements by Trump and others in his administration.” The Journal further reported: “On Sept. 5, President Trump described ongoing protests in Portland as 'unbelievable' and 'the destruction of the city.' Later that day, a sergeant from the Portland Police Bureau filed his daily observations of the demonstrations outside an ICE facility. 'Saw 8 people out front and couldn’t even get one of them to flip me the bird,' he wrote. 'Very low energy.'” The Journal also noted: “The White House has said the ICE facility is 'under siege.' Newly released police reports filed in federal court describe how the protests that began in June were dwindling before Trump’s order.” The Wall Street Journal, [10/9/25]

## On-the-ground news coverage highlighted that the vast majority of protests are relatively small and peaceful

- KGW reporter Evan Watson reported that the area just three blocks away from the ICE facility is “full of people enjoying picnics in the park, out here walking their dogs,” and “enjoying this nice summer evening.” Watson stated, “Every person we talked to on Tuesday laughed at the idea that Portland, and more specifically, this area near their homes and workplaces, needs federal troops.” KGW, *KGW News at 6*, [10/7/25]

- KATU reporter Jennifer Singh interviewed a protester outside the ICE facility who said Portland is not a war zone and fears that troops “will bring more violence,” not less. Singh added that the protests “have remained peaceful.” KATU, *KATU News at 6*, [10/5/25]

- KOIN reporter Ariel Salk opened a segment by showing the area outside the ICE building where there were “only a couple dozen people” protesting, including “people barbecuing, listening to music.” In contrast, Salk described federal agents “hurling can after can of tear gas” at demonstrators over the weekend, adding that the “smoke really engulfed this whole neighborhood.” KOIN, *KOIN 6 News at 6*, [10/6/25]

- Reporting outside the ICE facility, KPTV’s Makenna Marks said there were no “physical altercations or arrests” on Sunday and noted that many protesters were “in pajamas, sharing pastries, throwing a frisbee, and playing board games.” Marks also interviewed a number of residents who said the city “is not war-torn” and argued “the thing that’s harming us is the escalation tactics that Trump’s trying to use to create a narrative that Portland is this boogeyman that requires further militarization.” One resident told Marks, “If the narrative is Portland is a war zone, let’s actually take a look at who’s making it a war zone.” KPTV, *5 O’Clock News*, [10/5/25]

- :{:{CNN's Shimon Prokupecz reported on the ground from Portland: “The entire protest zone is less than a block long. ... The rest of Portland is not in chaos.” CNN, [10/8/25]}:
- }:
## Local coverage has also emphasized the excessive force used by federal agents on protesters

- KOIN’s Ariel Salk reported that people on the roof of the ICE facility mocked demonstrators and federal agents arrested multiple protesters while “using several rounds of multicolored tear gas against the crowd.” The correspondent interviewed a protester who said they had elderly people with them and were not expecting the tear gas. KOIN, *KOIN 6 News at 5*, [10/4/25]

- Salk later reported that she “personally saw a sniper rifle laser on a woman out here trying to drive into her apartment.” KOIN, *KOIN 6 News at 5*, [10/5/25]

- Salk reported on the impacts that the federal response is having on a low-income housing building across the street from the ICE facility, including residents enduring “tear gas spilling into their homes.” A representative from the building told the journalist, “The violent tactics that federal agents are using, including tear gas and pepper balls, are really impacting residents’ quality of life.” The journalist also noted that many residents are veterans who “are experiencing PTSD because of this tear gas, flash bangs, and helicopters that we’ve been seeing and hearing in the skies night after night.” KOIN, *KOIN 6 News at 5*, [10/6/25]

- KOIN reporter Ariel Iacobazzi said that Portland officials are accusing federal agents of “shoving peaceful veterans and elderly people to the ground, using impact munitions on peaceful crowds, and spraying pepper spray directly into protesters’ faces.” The segment then showed videos of protesters being pepper-sprayed point-blank by agents. KOIN, *KOIN 6 News at 11*, [10/6/25]

- KGW anchor David Molko highlighted claims of excessive force by federal agents, including “the use of pepper spray and impact munitions, things like rubber bullets, on an otherwise peaceful crowd.” The report included footage of a man who had pepper spray directed into the air intake of his inflatable frog costume by federal agents. KGW, *KGW News at 11*, [10/6/25]

- KPTV reporter Spencer Schacht spoke with a woman who was maced point-blank by a federal agent “with no warning, no warning at all.” The protester, Leilani Payne, called it a “violent attack” and is currently pursuing a use of force lawsuit against the federal agents. KPTV, *6 O’Clock News*, [10/6/25]

## Right-wing media coverage has painted a drastically different picture of Portland demonstrations, calling the city a “war zone” that is “under siege by antifa”

- The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles said, “You can see the pictures of Portland in just the last month or two — it looks like a war zone.” He added that Portland officials are “not protecting one another; you’re letting criminals roam your streets and maraud and kill.” The Daily Wire, *The Michael Knowles Show*, [9/29/25]

- Fox host Jesse Watters said that the National Guard is “on the way to do the job Portland police won't do” and claimed that “Portland has been under siege by antifa for four months.” Watters added, “A Portland police rep posted a picture of a sunrise with the caption, ‘“War-ravaged” Portland full of “domestic terrorists.”’ Well, the sun rises in Gaza, too. I don’t want to live there.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [10/1/25]

- The Five co-host Kayleigh McEnany attempted to justify the deployment of the National Guard in Portland by declaring there is “a pretty clear rebellion against" the government. McEnany cited supposed acts of violence committed against ICE agents, and she additionally argued that Trump is on “strong legal footing” because “you can federalize the Guard if there's a rebellion.” Fox News, *The Five*, [10/6/25]

- Newsmax host Rob Finnerty said Portland protests had “morphed into an insurrection.” Finnerty said: “This invasion of the weird is very bizarre,” adding, “Notice the foreign flags and strange tribal chants happening — again — in Oregon.” Newsmax, *Finnerty*, [10/2/25]

- OnWar Room, right-wing influencer Jack Posobiec said, “Portland as a city is now in open insurrection against the federal government.” Posobiec argued, “This is an actual insurrection scenario whereby in you have local officials that are completely defying the unmitigated right, the unlimited right of the federal government to enforce immigration laws.” He also posted on social media that the city “has fallen to Antifa.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [10/6/25; Twitter/X, 10/6/25]

- Daily Wire host Matt Walsh called Portland a “war zone” and said it’s “in a state of open insurrection.” “It's total chaos,” he said. “It's in a state of open insurrection. ICE agents are being attacked. Portland is trying to subvert the authority of the federal government, defy the laws of the land.” Daily Wire, *The Matt Walsh Show*, [10/7/25]

- Right-wing YouTuber Benny Johnson claimed Portland “has been conquered by antifa.” He added, “This is a fallen city.” YouTube, *The Benny Show*, [10/8/25]

*Update (10/10/25):This piece has been updated with additional information.

---

AN 10 25 WSJ GOT DM TO BONDI 2 BEEFY FBI AGENT TO PERP WALK COMEY , WENT PUBLIC SO HE SENT 2ND ONE PRAISING HER?

---

MMA MSNBC

NO LNX

Aug. 10, 2025, 3:00 AM PDT

By Matt Gertz, senior fellow for Media Matters for America

Fox News hosts elevated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to help return President Donald Trump to the White House. They then greased the skids for Kennedy’s confirmation as secretary of health and human services. But as he works to demolish American health care research, they are nowhere to be found.

Kennedy, a prominent vaccine skeptic who once described Covid-19 shots as “the deadliest vaccine ever made,” announced on Tuesday that he is terminating nearly $500 million in federal contracts supporting the development of next-generation vaccines and other treatments based on mRNA technology. “After reviewing the science and consulting top experts at NIH and FDA, HHS has determined that mRNA technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses,” he said in a video posted online.

Before the pandemic, Kennedy was not a natural fit for the Fox audience.

But Kennedy’s announcement drew harsh criticism from infectious disease experts and other scientists. They warned that the cuts could stall treatments for everything from respiratory illnesses to cancer, leave the nation more exposed to pandemics, undermine public trust in vaccines and threaten U.S. global leadership in medical advances.

While Kennedy’s announcement was widely discussed on MSNBC and CNN, as well as by national broadcast, print and digital outlets, Fox News has almost entirely ignored it. A single 30-second news brief on its “Special Report” program represents the entirety of the Trumpist propaganda network’s coverage through Thursday, according to a Media Matters review.

Fox News may not want to claim credit for Kennedy as he stifles crucial medical research, but it certainly deserves it. You can’t explain the evolution from Trump’s first administration, which fast-tracked the development of mRNA vaccines for Covid-19 through Operation Warp Speed, to the second term’s anti-vax, “Make America Healthy Again” schtick without talking about the network’s role in turning the GOP base against vaccines and toward conspiracy theorists like Kennedy.

'Misinformed' or 'speaking in the wrong terms': Doctor rebukes RFK Jr. over cutting mRNA research

05:03

When pharmaceutical companies began rolling out the vaccines produced under the Trump administration in late 2020 and early 2021, Fox News’ stars could have used the unique influence they have over their viewers to encourage them to get their Covid-19 shots. But Trump had lost his re-election bid, and the network that had worked so hard to keep him in office instead pandered to anti-vaxxers by turning against the vaccination campaign helmed by his successor, President Joe Biden.

Led by its then-prime-time star Tucker Carlson, the network incessantly promoted misleading and false claims about safe, effective vaccines with the potential to save their viewers’ lives — day after day, month after month, year after year. The network uplifted conspiracy theories, gave airtime to conspiracy theorists and culture war vaccine opponents, demagogued against efforts to get more people to receive these lifesaving shots, and propped up ineffective cures as potential substitutes. Fox News continued to broadcast these segments even as more Republican parts of the country, with lower vaccination rates, suffered higher Covid-19 death tolls, as The New York Times’ David Leonhardt detailed.

All of the fawning attention on Kennedy from the right had the impact one would expect.

Before the pandemic, Kennedy, the scion of a Democratic dynasty who once called for a boycott of Fox News host Sean Hannity and described him as a fascist, was not a natural fit for the Fox audience. But with the Covid-19 vaccine campaign underway, his decades of work undermining vaccines and his attacks on the new mRNA vaccines in particular suddenly made him attractive to the right.

When he began his presidential campaign in March 2023 — with Carlson’s show as his launchpad — MAGA media stalwarts saw an opportunity. They treated Kennedy’s bid, first in the Democratic primary and then as an independent candidate, as a potent spoiler candidacy to boost Trump’s return to power. Kennedy became a constant presence on the programs of pro-Trump commentators. Fox provided him with more airtime than many would-be Republican standard-bearers received.

All of the fawning attention on Kennedy from the right — alongside mainstream news coverage of his bizarre history, such as his claim that a parasite in his brain had triggered memory loss — had the impact one would expect: Kennedy became more popular with Republicans than Democrats. As polls increasingly showed that he was pulling support from Trump, though, MAGA media figures like Hannity abruptly turned on Kennedy. After Carlson reportedly helped to facilitate Kennedy’s decision to drop out and endorse the once-and-future president, Fox hosts resumed showering the anti-vax champion with praise.

‘Explosive’ conservative non-doctor turbocharging RFK Jr’s healthcare coup

05:52

As Election Day approached, talk turned to what reward Kennedy could expect in return. Paul Dans, the former head of Project 2025, floated Kennedy’s name for HHS secretary — and that’s precisely the position Trump nominated him for.

Not everyone on the right was willing to accept Kennedy’s ascent. The editorial boards of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal and New York Post denounced the decision and called for Senate Republicans to vote down his nomination.

Murdoch’s print voices lost out to his cable news shouters.

But Fox News hosts were elated. As Kennedy’s nomination moved through the Senate, they touted him as a “reformer” and “true health care crusader” who had “the skills, knowledge, and experience” needed for the job.” When Kennedy said he wasn’t going to take away anyone’s vaccines, Fox said he wasn’t going to take away anyone’s vaccines.

Murdoch’s print voices lost out to his cable news shouters — the Senate confirmed Kennedy on a near-party-line vote, with Sen. Mitch McConnell, a polio survivor, the sole Republican vote against him.

Trump’s latest attempt to defuse the Epstein revolt: Point supporters at common enemies

Written by Matt Gertz

Published 07/21/25

President Donald Trump is seeking to reunify allies enraged by his administration’s repudiation of MAGA claims about late convicted sex offender and disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein by offering up spurious attacks on common and familiar enemies: the media — in this case Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal — and former President Barack Obama.

Trump brought together an ideologically diverse coalition and a fractured right-wing media ecosystem during his 2024 campaign based largely on their shared hatred for Democrats, liberal institutions like the press, and the left. His administration’s actions have at times sparked criticism from different factions over the handling of issues like the Russia-Ukraine war, tariffs, U.S. strikes on Iran,, and, most of all, disclosures in the Epstein case.

The president spent last week failing to tamp down discussion of the Epstein story that seemed to be fracturing the MAGA movement. He tried claiming that his political enemies had “written” the “Epstein Files,” argued that the Epstein case is “pretty boring stuff,” and even lashed out at supporters who talk about it as “weaklings” and “stupid people.” But while the propagandists at Fox News were willing to play ball, Trump’s statements backfired elsewhere, leaving many right-wing media figures and the base alike in a state of revolt.

On Thursday, however, The Wall Street Journal reported that a “bawdy” letter bearing Trump’s signature had been included in an album created for Epstein’s 50th birthday (before allegations of his sexual abuse of girls became publicly known). The document, according to the Journal, had been reviewed by Justice Department officials who handled Epstein’s case.

The Journal report could have focused the right’s attention on Trump’s voluminous ties to Epstein. But Trump redirected them at a familiar target: journalists. responded that night by calling the letter “FAKE,” denouncing the paper, and claiming that he would sue. The following day, he followed through with a defamation lawsuit seeking $10 billion in damages from the two authors of the article; the Journal’s publisher, Dow Jones & Co.; parent company News Corp and that company’s CEO; and Murdoch himself.

Trump’s lawsuit is both unprecedented and consistent with Trump’s authoritarian treatment of a free press whose criticism he seeks to curtail through corrupt means. The message it sends is straightforward: If you publish reporting that displeases the president — even if, like Murdoch, your support was crucial to his political ascension — he may try to ruin you, so don’t try it.

While the Journal’s corporate cousins at Fox News mostly avoided the story on Friday, the network’s competitors throughout the fractured marketplace of right-wing media responded by sharpening their knives and attacking the paper. Laura Loomer deemed the Journal story “totally fake,” Charlie Kirk accused the Journal of a “terrible drive-by,” and Benny Johnson claimed that the real “scandal is in who wrote the story,” referencing a baroque conspiracy theory that was circulating on the right at the time.

The same day Trump’s lawyers filed their suit, former Fox contributor and current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard offered even more grist for the right-wing media mill. In a story served up to Fox as an exclusive, Gabbard claimed to have uncovered documents proving “a treasonous conspiracy in 2016 committed by officials at the highest level of our government” which aimed “to subvert the will of the American people and enact what was essentially a years-long coup.” She suggested that figures including Obama “must be investigated and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” and said she was referring the documents to the Justice Department. Leaving nothing to subtext, Trump subsequently posted to Truth Social an AI video featuring Obama beng arrested and imprisoned.

Those documents, however, demonstrate nothing other than Gabbard’s own ignorance and/or malice. They show that Obama received an intelligence report that Russia had not hacked election systems to change vote totals in the 2016 election — which is consistent with what the Obama administration said publicly at the time — then asked for and subsequently received another intelligence report detailing other actions taken by the Russian government in an effort to influence the election. That effort, according to the intelligence community, the Justice Department, and a Senate committee helmed at the time by current Secretary of State Marco Rubio, included hacking and releasing Democratic emails.

Fox News contributor Andrew McCarthy, in a withering piece at National Review, described Gabbard’s argument as a “frivolous” attempt to further Trump’s “foolish stance” that Russia had not tried to influence the 2016 election via “overwrought and misleading” language and “thundering claptrap.”

But her attacks served to reignite years of conspiracy-mongering about the Russia “witch hunt,” and thus were credibly regurgitated elsewhere on the right, including by Fox’s stars, with some echoing Gabbard’s demagogic language about purported “treason.” Trump, meanwhile, repeatedly posted Fox clips and articles from right-wing media hyping the purported scandal.

Much of MAGA media seems eager to target the Journal and Obama on Trump’s behalf. But it remains to be seen whether those influencers — or their audience — will be willing to allow the Epstein story to fade away altogether.

That said, Trump’s best hope of keeping his supporters happy may very well be increasing the scale and tempo of his authoritarian attacks — and that means there will be more to come in the months ahead.

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July 21, 2025, edition of The Benny Show, streamed on YouTube

BENNY JOHNSON (HOST): I mean, you're simply left to assume that all of it's been a lie and that they're 100% authentic, and I think most people in this audience already believe that.

But then if that's the case, then there's a lot of questions that are gonna be asked of Hillary Clinton. Now there's reports that Hillary Clinton and her team were aggressively pushing Barack Obama to launch Russiagate. We'll wait to see those documents — perhaps that's what Tulsi Gabbard is telling us is going to be dropping soon. We're not sure. But Tulsi Gabbard is saying not only are there major whistleblowers from inside the IC, but also that there's a lot more to come. And, you know, at what point do you begin to pull the threads back to Hillary Clinton? Could she potentially be culpable in any of this?

JULIE KELLY (HOST): I doubt it. I mean, you know, let's cut to the chase. No one's gonna indict Hillary Clinton. No one's gonna indict Barack Obama. So we can, I think, disabuse ourselves of that vision or —

JOHNSON: Really? You don't think Obama either?

KELLY: No. No. No. No. No. No. And, you know, of course, you got the issue with Barack Obama. What would you charge him with? We have the immunity ruling from the Supreme Court, really, a year ago that carves out only specific instances where a president in office could be held criminally liable. And I'm sure that Barack Obama, if anything came down, would be smart enough and his lawyers would figure that out. So no.

But look. I really wanna see the henchmen like Lisa Monaco — and I know I keep going back to her. But look, she also ran the Biden DOJ. So she was the one that really ran the first two invest — the two investigations into the president for classified documents and for January 6. She, I'm sure, worked with special counsel Jack Smith, was involved in his appointment. People from the DOJ leaving the Department of Justice, going to the special counsel's office — Chuck Grassley just, last week, I believe, the last several days, releasing emails showing how Tom Windom, another prosecutor who went to the DCUS attorney's office, which was in constant contact with the DOJ, I'm told, specifically Lisa Monaco's office, how he was pushing top-down the FBI to open this January 6 investigation into the president, which of course they did.

So I'm looking for a lot more records related to that as well. And so, those are the people who I think are the most likely to be held responsible, criminally liable, and the ones who should be.

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mma 5 25

Fox News’ Jesse Watters says Medicaid work requirements target men in their 20s who “sell ecstasy on the side"

Fox News, Fox Business, and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page — three gilded properties in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire — have pushed for cuts to Medicaid, either by adding work requirements or through an outright rollback of the program’s expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Slashing Medicaid is incredibly unpopular, including among supporters of President Donald Trump, so on some occasions Fox has misled its viewers into thinking the Republican budget doesn’t pose a threat to the program.

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AN 5 25

The Wall Street Journal reportsmany Americans may not care to adopt the kind of factory work President Donald Trump’s is pledging to bring back to the U.S.

“The jobs are tiring, feature hazards not found at desk jobs and are tough to fill. Once workers are recruited, it can be difficult to get them to stay,” reports WSJ. “… The work represents the type of gritty, physically demanding labor … Trump envisions will recast the U.S. as the manufacturing powerhouse it once was.”

The Wall Street Journal reports the U.S. already has nearly half a million unfilled manufacturing jobs, according to the U.S. Labor Department. A 2025 National Association of Manufacturers survey also shows nearly half of manufacturing companies say their biggest challenge is recruitment and retention in jobs with rigid hours, hard work, and risk of significant physical injury. Additionally, the pay is 7.8% lower on average than the private sector, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, following a decline in union representation.

“A lot of people say they wouldn’t work in a place like this because of how hard it is,” said Quaker City Castings employee Zachary Puchajda, who is a metal caster.

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Carolyn Lee, president of the Manufacturing Institute, a nonprofit focused on workforce development for the sector, told WSJ that the significant labor shortage makes scaling up production a challenge.

Quaker City Castings President Dave Lordi told reporters his company saw a brief 25% surge in orders after Trump announced tariffs, but he would need to add a second work shift. This, say analysts, would not be easy without manufacturers adding better pay and schedule flexibility, among other things that Americans have come to expect from work. Plus, many of the incentives it would require to coax Americans into factories could drive up purchase prices for U.S. factory-made goods. American-made Viking stoves already cost more than $5,000 for a low end model, and those are made in Greenwood, Mississippi, which is known for its record low cost of living.

Lee says the U.S. manufacturing industry is nowhere near the level of evolution it needs to be to engage growth.

“You can’t just plop a factory down and hope people will miraculously appear,” Lee said.

Read the full Wall Street Journal report here.

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AN 4 25

'Heed the warnings': Scathing WSJ editorial warns Trump 'could sink his presidency' after first 100 days

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mma

WSJ pundits demolish right-wing talking points defending Hegseth: “It all comes back again to this basic point that something's wrong at the top levels”}:

04/24/25

fox stars pass on defending Hegseth amid Pentagon “chaos”

Written by Matt Gertz

:{:{Published 04/25/25}:

Fox News’ biggest stars have stopped defending Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth amid the weeklong firestorm over their former colleague’s dysfunctional management of the Pentagon and his potentially illegal handling of classified information.

Three months after Vice President JD Vance broke a 50-50 Senate tie to install the historically underqualified Hegseth at the Pentagon, journalists routinely describe a department in “chaos.” Five top Hegseth aides have left the department since last Friday amid reports of “vicious rivalries,” and a “leadership vacuum.” Reporters further revealed that Hegseth had shared details about U.S. strikes in Yemen in a second unsecured Signal chat, potentially endangering U.S. service members, and had the app installed on his Pentagon computer.

Hegseth responded to his growing list of scandals with a combative Tuesday appearance on Fox & Friends, whose hosts defended his conduct.

But other Fox hosts have been silent, even after rallying to support Hegseth when his nomination came under fire and again following the first revelation of his use of Signal to share attack plans.

Fox’s evening lineup of The Ingraham Angle, Jesse Watters Primetime, Hannity, and Gutfeld!have ignored Hegseth’s struggles this week (a passing remark from guest Jimmy Failla to host Laura Ingraham was the only mention of the story on any of those shows).The Five, the Fox panel show which features Jesse Watters, Greg Gutfeld, Jeanine Pirro, and Dana Perino, also has not covered the subject.

Even Will Cain, who spent years sharing the couch with Hegseth as co-hosts of Fox & Friends’ weekend edition, hasn’t mentioned his former colleague’s name on his afternoon show this week. (He did not comment on Fox correspondent Kevin Corke’s report about the Signal story during Monday’s program.)

As Fox’s stars take a pass, full-throated defenses of Hegseth’s leadership are coming from the likes of MAGA stalwarts like Charlie Kirk, Benny Johnson, and Laura Loomer, while their corporate cousins at The Wall Street Journal editorial board savage his handling of the Pentagon.

Two explanations seem plausible for why Fox’s biggest stars have gone silent as their former colleague comes under fire:

They’ve decided that the best way to help Hegseth is to keep pretending the Signal story is over, hide other damning reports about his leadership from their viewers, and hope the firestorm dies out.

They think Hegseth’s performance is so bad and the stakes of his failure at the Defense Department are so high that they are unwilling to keep sticking their necks out for him.

Either way, this disaster was the predictable result of President Donald Trump putting a former Fox weekend host with little relevant experience in charge of the Pentagon. The secretary of defense oversees a massive budget and bureaucracy and has the authority under certain circumstances to launch nuclear weapons and end human civilization. The risks of handing the position over to someone because of their takes on TV are almost incalculably high.

Hegseth is currently struggling to manage the Pentagon when its biggest problem is a costly, ineffective, and apparently unending bombing campaign in Yemen. How will he respond if India and Pakistan start trading fire?

### Fox stars pass on defending Hegseth amid Pentagon “chaos”

04/25/25

### Trump used Fox to vet his defense secretary. It isn’t going well — but now the network is fighting back.

:{:{12/04/24}:

### Fox propagandists scramble to explain former colleagues texting war plans to a reporter

:{:{03/25/25}:

### The Pete Hegseth debacle was inevitable

04/23/2

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an 4 25

The Wall Street Journal announced a twist in President Donald Trump’s purported crusade against the weaponization of the justice system: He’s now targeting his own former aides.

Trump — the nation’s first president to be elected after having been convicted of felonies — campaigned on ending the “weaponization” of the federal government, but the WSJ reports he is now “siccing it” on two of his perceived enemies, ordering federal investigations and possible prosecutions.

The editorial board calls this “a broken promise, an abuse of power, and another twist down the spiral of politicized law enforcement.”

On Wednesday, Trump directed allegedly independent federal agencies to open inquiries into two former officials who worked in his first term. The paper notes how Trump made a point of “picking targets first, publicly announcing them, and only then looking for misdeeds and evidence.”

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“Mr. Trump,” the board said, “is doing precisely what Democrats did to him.”

Trump’s first “target” is Chris Krebs, who led the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) until two weeks after the 2020 election when Trump fired him for dispelling Trump’s bogus claims of voter fraud.

The other, Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor, allegedly “stoked dissension by manufacturing sensationalist reports on the existence of a supposed ‘resistance’ within the Federal Government.” Trump has ordered “review” of Taylor’s “activities” and “conduct,” with recommendations for “remedial” action, but opined: “I think he’s guilty of treason, if you want to know the truth.”

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broke w trump early on tariffs dumbest in hist

an 4 25

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an 4 25

President Donald Trump's decision last week to impose sweeping global tariffs, despite warnings from economic experts against the move, and then to suddenly "pause" most of these tariffs on Wednesday, has been met with sharp rebuke from political commentators.

In a Wall Street Journal articlepublished Wednesday, conservative commentator Mark Helprin accused the Trump administration of being "too addicted to shock, awe and intimidation to see the harm it is doing to itself."

"In his attempt to break the excesses of the administrative state, Mr. Trump’s every action can be countermanded. More consequentially, given that the seat and beneficiary of the administrative state is the executive, once the wheel turns and a Democratic administration effortlessly reverses his flurry of executive orders, augmented executive power insulated from judicial restraint will resurrect and supercharge the permanent bureaucracy," Helprin wrote.

ALSO READ:This chart explains why Trump flip-flopped on tariffs

"Thus, unbeknownst to him, Mr. Trump is building, as he might say, an “incredibly beautiful” fortress—across the battlements of which Elizabeth Warren may someday stride," he added.

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The columnist noted that the administration's initiatives in various areas jeopardize its true achievements. "Its delight in shock and awe feeds upon itself in complete disregard of history and without projecting forward in view of the relative powers it seeks to marshal against those of the world, the laws of economics, and the very weight of reality, all of which it seems to imagine it is somehow able to intimidate," he said.

"Although Congress planted the administrative state within the executive and only Congress can extirpate it, nonetheless Elon Musk has been set loose to move fast and break it," the commentator wrote.

"The fact that payroll, for example, represents only 5% of federal expenditures makes many of his targets look more like the cape than the bullfighter. Rather than savings quietly accomplished by attrition and carefully deliberated reductions, a lot of political capital is evaporating in exchange for frissons and provocations," he said.

ALSO READ:The suffering of white Trump voters isn't going to change a thing

Helprin went on to say that "the things that are broken belong to the American people, not to Messrs."

He said Trump and Musk's "defiant enjoyment of being bad boys is unseemly and undignified."

"The Republican Party, or what is left of it, will suffer for years to come as a result of the gross overestimation of impermanent political advantage," he added.

ALSO READ:Potential 'knives out' for MAGA Republicans following Trump’s trade war implosion

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odd src?

Department of Government Efficiency staffer resigned Thursday after racists posts across his now deleted X (formerly Twitter) account came to light, the Wall Street Journal exclusively reports.

Marko Elez, 25, was granted access to the US Department of Treasury's payment system by a federal judge Thursday morning, according to the report, but the judge also "limited" the Elon Musk ally's "ability to share the data."

He resigned from his role hours later.

WSJ reports:

*The account, @nullllptr—a misspelling of a keyword in the C++ programming language—was deleted in December, but hundreds of brash, sometimes-sophomoric posts have been archived.

*The user appeared to have a special dislike for Indian software engineers. '99% of Indian H1Bs will be replaced by slightly smarter LLMs, they’re going back don’t worry guys,' the user posted in December.

*'Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,' @nullllptr posted in July.

"You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity," a September 2024 post on the account also read, according to WSJ. "Normalize Indian hate," it continued.

Furthermore, the account also "advocated repealing the Civil Rights Act and backed a 'eugenic immigration policy' in the weeks before President Trump was inaugurated."

===

One Fox contributor called out RFK Jr.’s “lifetime spreading misinformation.” Fox's evening lineup then gushed over him.

Written by Isabella Corrao

Research contributions from John Whitehouse

Published 01/30/25 mma

On the first day of anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Senate confirmation hearings for secretary of Health and Human Services — where the nominee showed he doesn't understand how Medicaid works — most Fox News figures spent the evening fawning over Kennedy, despite his history of misinformation.

Meanwhile, other Rupert Murdoch-owned outlets are sounding the alarm about Kennedy's lack of qualifications, with one Wall Street Journal editorial board member appearing on Fox to emphasize that Kennedy “has spent a lifetime spreading misinformation.”

Fox News contributor Jason Riley: Kennedy “has spent a lifetime spreading misinformation"

On Special Report, Wall Street Journal columnist and Fox News contributor Jason Riley noted that Kennedy “has spent a lifetime spreading misinformation and enriching himself and trial lawyers by spreading this misinformation. I don’t think he’s the right person for the job.”

Video

From the January 29, 2025, edition of Fox News'Special Report with Bret Baier

The Wall Street Journal editorial page also called out Kennedy’s “clear conflict of interest” in making money on lawsuits against drug companies while head of HHS as flat-out “disqualifying”:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday to root out corruption between industry and government. Yet the man who wants to be the nation’s Secretary of Health and Human Services refused to rule out personally making money from lawsuits against drug makers. This ought to be disqualifying.

...

Mr. Kennedy’s disclosures show that he has received more than $2.5 million from law firms that have sued drug and vaccine makers. He also has a financial stake in a pending lawsuit against human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine maker Merck. Mr. Kennedy’s trial-lawyer ties and financial interests in litigation against drug makers pose a clear conflict of interest.

Indeed, Murdoch outlets like The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post have been some of the loudest critics of Kennedy's nomination, drawing criticism from the likes of Steve Bannon.

### Criticism for Kennedy from within right-wing media followed a hearing in which Kennedy showed ignorance on basic issues

Nearly 100 million low-income Americans rely on Medicaid for their health care coverage, but it is one of many programs on the chopping block as Republicans prepare a massive bill aimed at cutting taxes for the rich. During his hearing, Kennedy showed ignorance of how Medicaid works. Perhaps the most devastating line of questioning came from a Republican senator:

> Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., repeatedly pressed Kennedy about proposed changes to the program and for his thoughts about Medicaid reform.

“Republicans, again, are looking at ways to potentially reform Medicaid to help pay for President Trump’s priorities,” Cassidy said. “What thoughts do you have regarding Medicaid reform?”

“Most people who are on Medicaid are not happy,” Kennedy responded. “The premiums are too high, the deductibles are too high, the networks are narrow.”

A 2023 poll from KFF, a nonprofit group that researches health policy issues, found that a majority of Americans have “very favorable” or “somewhat favorable” views of the program. He made similar comments about the Affordable Care Act.

People on Medicaid generally aren’t charged premiums or deductibles at all.

Kennedy also reportedly made false or misleading claims about vaccines, chronic disease in children, and even his own previous remarks — such as when he was caught on video in 2023 pushing the deranged conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was “targeted” to “attack Caucasians and Black people” and exclude Jewish and Chinese people.

Kennedy has a troubling history of pushing false claims about public health and safety. He long has argued that “autism comes from vaccines,” despite many peer-reviewed studies concluding there is no link.

In 2019, then the chairman of the anti-vaccine nonprofit Children Health’s Defense, Kennedy traveled to the country Samoa and seemingly took advantage of two babies’ deaths resulting from improperly administered measles vaccines to emphasize the supposed dangers of vaccines and discourage vaccination efforts. Eighty-three people died from measles and thousands were sickened in the outbreak that subsequently swept Samoa.

### Before and after Riley's remarks, Fox News hosts gushed over Kennedy

Despite Kennedy's record of pushing misinformation and his questionable performance in the hearing — and despite the record of criticism of Kennedy from Murdoch outlets — Fox News’ biggest hosts unabashedly celebrated his nomination after the first hearing:

- Fox News host Will Cain condemned Democrats who criticized Kennedy: “It’s quite shocking to see some stand there today, defend the status quo, and destroy — attempt to destroy — a reformer.” He added that Kennedy “believes in a role for vaccines.” Fox News, *The Will Cain Show*, [1/29/25]

- The Fiveco-host Jeanine Pirro praised Kennedy as a “radical” who is “exactly who we need.” She also downplayed Democrats’ concerns about Kennedy’s nomination: “Why all of the sudden is this guy subjected to all kinds of craziness?” Fox News, *The Five*, [1/29/25]

- While host Greg Gutfeld cautioned that Kennedy’s view on vaccines seem “more reliant on his gut instinct than science,” he still praised him, saying he’s “passionate, he’s persuasive, he’s open-minded,” and he's “not woke.” He noted that Kennedy “does raise good points” and “we need people to raise questions.” Fox News, *The Five*, [1/29/25]

- Host Laura Ingraham argued that Democrats are “scrambling to take down the nomination of a true health care crusader.” She further defended Kennedy: “What RFK Jr. lacks in managerial experience, he makes up for with an unwavering dedication to improving America's spiraling health with more commonsense approaches.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [1/29/25]

- Host Jesse Watters praised Kennedy as the “the only one with the skills, knowledge, and experience to get inside of this government and help America reverse this chronic disease epidemic.” He continued, “Our citizens voted to make America great and healthy again.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [1/29/25]

- Host Sean Hannity said Kennedy did an “amazing job on Capitol Hill.” He defended the nomination by claiming, “We can't be strong if [PPL SICK]...

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op ed ~ j6 pardons but

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an 1 25

The editorial board of The Wall Street Journalvented its frustration Thursday that Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is still in his post at the end of the first week of U.S. President Donald Trump's second White House term.

"Why Is Rohit Chopra Still Employed at the CFPB?" reads the headline of an editorial the Journal published late Thursday, hours after the Chopra-led bureau announced that it is opening a docket for public comment on credit card interest rates and other terms.

"Americans owe well over $1 trillion in credit card debt, and many feel crushed by sky-high interest and fees," Chopra wrote in a social media post Thursday morning.

Morgan Harper, director of policy and advocacy at the American Economic Liberties Project, said in a statement that "the only groups opposing this effort are big banks and credit card companies, which would rather see the agency sit idly by as they rake in excess profits from consumers through fees and interest rates that often surpass 30%."

Chopra was chosen by former President Joe Biden to lead the CFPB, a frequent target of attacks from Republicans and Trump allies, including billionaire Elon Musk. During his first White House stint, Trump attempted to gut the CFPB by installing an opponent of the bureau to lead it.

But while Chopra has packed up his office in Washington, D.C., Trump has yet to fire the CFPB chief—a fact that is reportedly making Wall Street nervous.

The Journal's editorial board, a reliable mouthpiece for big business, complained Thursday that Chopra "has spent his tenure advancing progressive hobbyhorses, including rules that ban medical debt on consumer credit reports and cap bank overdraft fees."

The editorial goes on to claim, citing anonymous sources, that Chopra has "sought to ingratiate himself with [Vice President] JD Vance in hopes of serving out his term," which officially ends in October 2026.

News reports suggest that Trump's team has "struggled to make selections to replace" Chopra—a difficulty that one watchdog said is unsurprising.

"Being the hatchet person for the sort of chiselers and grifters that the CFPB fights against is not exactly a fun job—especially as some elements within MAGA could potentially call you out," Jeff Hauser of the Revolving Door Project toldThe American Prospect.

In a column on Friday, the Prospect's David Dayen wrote that Chopra's continued presence at the helm of the CFPB is "freaking Wall Street out."

"Though it was expected that he would be quickly let go, his office continues to be active," Dayen noted. "On Tuesday, CFPB announced a settlement with Argus Information and Advisory Services, a TransUnion subsidiary, CFPB contractor, and serial violator of several financial and data privacy laws. Argus agreed to not seek any contracts with CFPB for five years. Then on Thursday, CFPB released a report showing growing instances of auto repossessions, well above the pre-pandemic level."

Over the past four years, the Chopra-led CFPB "managed to put over $6 billion back into the pockets of Americans," according to the Consumer Federation of America.

But Dayen wrote that "if Chopra continues to make life miserable for financial operators and oligarchs—Big Tech has been one of his main concerns—the pressure to dump him will grow."

"It's just amusing that the time hasn't come yet," Dayen added. "Amid all the other wreckage, watching Wall Street squirm a bit is at least a tiny bit of solace."

===

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an 1 25

Donald Trump’s ambitious demand that the United States regain control of the Panama Canal would be “a mess” for the country, according to the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, which added that it is just the latest example of the incoming president’s “bully tactic diplomacy.”

Trump’s “America First” agenda was on full display during a disjointed news conference Tuesday at his Mar-a-Lago golf resort, where he turned heads for again repeating his desire for the U.S. to acquire Canada, Panama and Greenland.

But the trick to deciphering Trump’s remarks “is figuring out when Mr. Trump is trolling and when he means it,” the Journal’s conservative editorial board wrote Wednesday.

“A Greenland deal has potential if he’s artful. Panama would be a mess, and his Canada trolling could hurt the Conservatives,” according to the board. “Mr. Trump often prefers to talk tough, but using the bully pulpit to bully America’s friends is no help against the real bad guys.”

Trump told reporters Tuesday that “the Panama Canal is vital to our country,” adding that it was “a big mistake” for the U.S. to sign over the canal in a treaty under former President Jimmy Carter. But his tough talk on Panama seemed to be a bridge too far for the board, which noted that the president-elect refused to take using military force off the table.

“If he means that, he’s asking for trouble,” the board wrote in their op-ed. “It would turn an ally in the Western Hemisphere into an adversary. Does he want a forever guerrilla war?”

The Journal’s editorial board suggested that Trump’s threats may be aimed at a deal on canal fees “or maybe the Panamanian ports managed by a Hong Kong entity.”

“But he’s simply making it up that Chinese soldiers are running the canal,” the board wrote in a fact check of Trump’s claims the canal is being operated by Chinese soldiers.

They concluded that Trump – who famously penned “The Art of the Deal” with ghostwriter Tony Schwartz – would benefit from a piece of his advice.

“One possible option might be a defense free association compact with Greenland, similar to U.S. arrangements with Pacific island states,” the board wrote. “The subtle art of persuasion would be required.”

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an 12 24

Mona Charen, now 67, has been a part of conservative journalism since 1979, when the National Review hired her as an editorial assistant. Charen has been a prominent figure on the right, working as a speechwriter for First Lady Nancy Reagan during the 1980s and penning books with titles like "Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First" and "Do-Gooders: How Liberals Hurt Those They Claim to Help (and the Rest of Us)."

But Charen, a blistering critic of President-elect Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, supported Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential race. And she has made no secret of her view that Trumpism has had an extremely negative influence on the Republican Party and the conservative movement.

In an article published by the conservative website The Bulwark on December 17, Charen blames "Trumpian populism" for the "decline of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page."

"Sure, I understand that the Journal probably always rubbed progressives the wrong way, and perhaps that limits how much they can see the precipitous drop in the paper's standards," Charen argues. "But it seems clear to me that in the pre-Trump era, the paper had some integrity. While the board was broadly aligned with the Republican Party, its editorials didn't hesitate to differ with Republicans on major questions."

Charen continues, "The Journal was consistently pro-immigration, for example, strongly free-trade, and moderate on social issues like abortion and gay rights. It was a platform for serious writers and informed opinion. And even now, it still has flashes of its old self now and then. But those only underscore the sad corruption of a once great institution."

The former Nancy Reagan speechwriter cites the WSJ editorial board's endorsement of far-right conspiracy theorist Kari Lake in Arizona's 2022 gubernatorial race as a glaring example of their willingness to promote extremists.

"In the Trump era," Charen laments, "the Journal has become, if not Pravda, then something like The Nation. The Nation reliably whitewashed the sins of the Soviet Union and other communist regimes because it regarded anti-communism as a greater threat to the world than communism itself."

Charen adds, "Similarly, the Wall Street Journal has gradually become a parody of itself on the grounds that Democrats are always and forever the greatest threat to the country. With that guiding principle, there is simply no Republican, no matter how deranged or unfit, whom the Journal will not prefer to a Democratic opponent."

*Mona Charen's full article for The Bulwark is available at this link.

an 11 24

The editors of the conservative Wall Street Journal are warning former President Donald Trump against carrying out a recently leaked scheme to purge the American military of senior officers.

In an editorial about Trump's nomination of Fox News personality Pete Hegseth to lead the United States Department of Defense, the editors urged Trump to act with caution when it comes to plans to shake up the military brass.

"The military isn’t Mr. Trump’s enemy, and a purge mentality will court political trouble and demoralize the ranks," the editorial board argued. "The draft executive order, leaked to the press, about forming a group of former officers to rule on the fitness of current generals would be a mistake that smacks of politicizing the officer corps."

The editorial also argued against taking out his anger against former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley on other military leaders.

"Firing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs CQ Brown would also be counterproductive," they wrote. "Mr. Trump is still furious about former Chairman Mark Milley’s criticisms, and not without cause, but Mr. Trump promoted Gen. Milley. The better path is to look for officers who understand the current global dangers and have good ideas for what to do about it. Adm. Sam Paparo of the U.S. Indo-Pacific command is one."

The editors also expressed concern that Hegseth seems to be obsessed with purging any "woke" elements from the American military rather than focusing on more immediate and concrete problems.

"In the context of America’s security challenges, wokeness is a small concern," they argued.

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