CNN Forced To Fact-Check Itself After Claiming Trump Lied About Transgender Mice

[rebelmouse-proxy-image https://thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-06-at-3.09.34 PM-e1741291895219-1200x675.png crop_info="%7B%22image%22%3A%20%22https%3A//thefederalist.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/Screenshot-2025-03-06-at-3.09.34%5Cu202fPM-e1741291895219-1200x675.png%22%7D" expand=1]In his joint address to Congress on Tuesday, President Donald Trump highlighted the “appalling waste” in government spending, including $8 million being allocated to making mice “transgender.” Trump’s point was crystal clear: Taxpayers are spending millions on research trying to prove that it’s OK to pump boys full of estrogen and girls full of testosterone. […]

Democrats flip-flop on 'fake peace agreement' following Zelenskyy's Oval Office meltdown



Democratic lawmakers are struggling to keep their story straight in the aftermath of the now infamous Oval Office spat between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President Donald Trump, and Vice President JD Vance on Friday.

Zelenskyy's combative meeting with Trump and Vance sent politicos into a tailspin, prompting some of his longtime supporters like Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to denounce the Ukrainian president. At the same time, Democrats like Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut were left scrambling to defend Zelenskyy, causing a slew of mixed messages in the media.

While Democrats try to sort out their own narrative, Trump has consistently upheld his own position.

Murphy at first insisted that the minerals deal was a "fake peace agreement" that would force Ukraine to submit to President Vladimir Putin's will. At the same time, Murphy said that he encouraged Zelenskyy to sign the very deal he criticized just days before.

"Just finished a meeting with President Zelensky here in Washington," Murphy said moments before the Oval Office spat. "He confirmed that the Ukrainian people will not support a fake peace agreement where Putin gets everything he wants and there are no security arrangements for Ukraine."

"This is the latest MAGA conspiracy," Murphy later said in response to a headline claiming Democrats pressured Zelenskyy to reject the peace deal. "Total lie. The meeting with [Zelenskyy] was bipartisan - led by a Senate Republican. We all encouraged him to sign the minerals deal. But yes - he did make clear he wouldn’t accept a bad 'ceasefire' deal that sold out his country."

Murphy's bizarre messaging continued during an appearance on CNN, where he claimed that Zelenskyy was somehow both "ready to sign the agreement" but also "had an obligation" to have a conversation with Trump about the "disaster that would be wrought for Ukraine" if the agreement was signed.

Murphy is not the only Democrat who has had difficulty messaging on the fallout from Zelenskyy's Oval Office appearance. Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut originally categorized the minerals deal as a "step toward strengthening American support for Ukraine" but later said the deal was just "Trump's appeasement to Putin."

"An inspiring, heartening conversation with President Zelenskyy this morning," Blumenthal said Friday. "The agreement today is a step toward strengthening American support for Ukraine, but real, reliable security guarantees are needed. We must be consistent in our steadfast commitment to Ukraine."

"Trump’s appeasement to Putin—Peace at Any Price—makes him Moscow’s perfect mouthpiece," Blumenthal said of the peace deal. "Zelenskyy wants peace but not at the price of Ukraine’s freedom & independence. Europe is supporting him. So should we. Kremlin propaganda is applauding & lauding Trump—a disgrace for America."

While Democrats try to sort out their own narrative, Trump has consistently upheld his own position.

"The only President who gave none of Ukraine’s land to Putin’s Russia is President Donald J. Trump," Trump said in a Monday Truth Social post. "Remember that when the weak and ineffective [Democrats] criticize, and the Fake News gladly puts out anything they say!"

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

DNC anti-'misinformation' account caught pushing provocative fake audio of Donald Trump Jr.



The Democratic National Committee's rapid response account FactPostNews, established in January as part of an initiative to "combat online misinformation," was caught Wednesday pushing a fake audio clip purporting to show Donald Trump Jr. voicing support for turning against Ukraine and arming Russia.

"The audio in question, which was amplified by the official X account of the DNC, along with countless other major anti-Trump accounts, is 100% fake," a spokesman for Donald Trump Jr. told ABC News. "It appears to be an AI-generated deepfake."

Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and the co-founder of GetReal Labs who is an expert on digital forensics and synthetic media, appeared to agree, suggesting that the audio viewed millions of times and shared at least 6,600 times on X was most likely generated by artificial intelligence.

The clip was presented as an excerpt from the Feb. 25 episode of Don Jr.'s podcast ... even though the episode still had not been uploaded.

In the fake audio clip shared by the DNC's FactPostNews account, thousands of other partisan accounts, and foreign outfits like Visegrád 24, a voice made to resemble Trump Jr.'s says, "I honestly can't imagine anyone in their right mind picking Ukraine as an ally when Russia is the other option."

"I mean, just think about it: Massive nuclear power loaded with natural resources everyone needs, literally the biggest country on the planet. And ha ha, there's Ukraine, which has Chernobyl and some radiation-proof dogs," continues the voice. "Meanwhile, the Biden administration is like, 'Oh, yeah, this is definitely the ally we need. Let's dump all our money into them.' Honestly, if anything, the U.S. should have been sending weapons to Russia."

Mediaite reported that there were immediately suspicions about the authenticity of the audio, especially since the clip was presented as an excerpt from the Feb. 25 episode of Don Jr.'s podcast, "Triggered with Donald Trump Jr.," on Spotify, even though the episode still had not been uploaded to the platform as of Thursday morning. In the full Feb. 25 episode that aired on Rumble, the remarks were nowhere to be found.

Andrew Surabian, a Republican strategist and spokesman for Donald Trump Jr., tweeted, "This is 100% fake AI generated audio, but I'm sure that won't stop anti-Trump resistance accounts from continuing to dishonestly spread it."

Citing a policy against "misinformation," a spokesman for the DNC told ABC News that the post was removed as soon as it was learned that the audio spread online was fake.

When Democrats launched FactPostNews, DNC chief mobilization officer Shelby Cole said in a statement, "The Republican disinformation machine is powerful, but we believe a stronger weapon is giving people the facts about how Trump and his administration are screwing over the American people."

The DNC does not appear to have bothered issuing a public apology for presenting provocative Russia-based falsehoods to its audience as "facts."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Blaze Media jumps into White House press pool, signaling legacy media's weakening stranglehold



The White House Correspondents' Association has long determined which journalists get to participate in the presidential press pool, effectively guaranteeing the legacy media's unrivaled access to the nation's chief executive along with its ability to determine what information is ultimately disseminated to the public.

Citing a desire to restore power to the people, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Tuesday that the White House press team, not the WHCA, will now determine who populates the pool.

The White House wasted no time switching things up. On Wednesday, it displaced the establishment media in the pool and brought in Blaze Media senior politics editor and Washington correspondent Christopher Bedford along with a TV correspondent from Newsmax.

'The Trump administration understands how vital fair and balanced media access is.'

Bedford, representing new media, also attended President Donald Trump's first Cabinet meeting, where he pressed Elon Musk about the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency's next moves.

"This is the first time in history a new media reporter has been selected to be part of the pool," Bedford told BlazeTV's "Blaze News Tonight: The Mandate." "There was, of course, some grumbling about that."

— (@)

"Today's coverage signifies how Blaze Media is expanding to provide our audience with the best news about the Trump administration's effort to implement the mandate of the people," stated Blaze Media editor in chief Matthew Peterson. "Chris Bedford is one of the best journalists in the nation and obviously needed to be part of the White House press pool."

Peterson noted further that "for years, legacy media has derived its power from monopolizing control over access to the White House and powerful government officials. The Trump administration understands how vital fair and balanced media access is to preserve and strengthen our form of government. But this story is ultimately not about us or the Trump administration, but serving our audience: concerned and responsible American citizens."

Diversifying the pool

The shake-up took place a day after U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden declined to restore the Associated Press' spot in the press pool and suggested that the WHCA's control was "odd."

'New voices are going to be welcomed.'

"It feels a little odd that the White House is bound by certain decisions that this private organization is making," McFadden reportedly said during a hearing Monday. "Seems to me the White House could decide to throw out the White House Correspondents' Association altogether."

The White House evidently agreed.

"A group of D.C.-based journalists, the White House Correspondents' Association, has long dictated which journalists get to ask questions of the president of the United States in these most intimate spaces. Not any more," said Leavitt.

"Legacy outlets who have participated in the press pool for decades will still be allowed to join — fear not — but we will also be offering the privilege to well-deserving outlets who have never been allowed to share in this awesome responsibility," Leavitt said Tuesday.

"New voices are going to be welcomed in as well."

While the five major television networks will continue to take part in the pool on a rotational basis, they will be joined by streaming services, including podcasters, as well as by new media and print outlets shut out by previous administrations.

The White House press team did not immediately respond to a question about the significance of the changes.

After announcing Bedford's admission to the White House press pool on "The Glenn Beck Program," Rikki Ratliff-Fellman, director of programming at Blaze Media, quipped, "I can hear the screams from the legacy media from here."

— (@)

The screams

Elements of the legacy media were prickled by the WHCA's replacement and the changes to the press pool that followed.

WHCA president and Politico reporter Eugene Daniels said in a statement Tuesday, "This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States."

The following day, Daniels announced that the WHCA's board of directors would no longer distribute pool reports or assist with "any attempt by this administration or any other in taking over independent press coverage of the White House."

'That monopoly no longer exists.'

A spokesman for the New York Times called the White House's decision an "effort to undermine the public's access to independent, trustworthy information about the most powerful person in America."

The Times' chief White House correspondent, Peter Baker, reflexively launched into Russia comparisons, writing, "This reminds me of how the Kremlin took over its own press pool and made sure that only compliant journalists were given access."

It is worth noting that on Wednesday, the left-leaning publications ABC, Axios, Bloomberg, NPR, and the New York Times had people in the pool.

Jacqui Heinrich, a news anchor and senior White House correspondent for Fox News, did not invoke Russia but was similarly bent out of shape, tweeting, "This move does not give the power back to the people — it gives power to the White House."

Jordan Schachtel, publisher of the Dossier, suggested that Heinrich's complaint amounts to whinging from the "token right of center outlet allowed in the WHCA cartel."

"Upstarts and competitors were frozen out and it greatly benefited those already inside the group," continued Schachtel. "Now that monopoly no longer exists."

The top editors at the Associated Press, Reuters, and Bloomberg issued a joint statement Wednesday suggesting that the White House's decision to admit one wire service to the press pool on Wednesday, as opposed to the usual three, amounted to a threat to America's access from the free press.

"We believe that any steps by the government to limit the number of wire services with access to the president threatens that principle. It also harms the spread of reliable information to people, communities, businesses, and global financial markets that heavily depend on our reporting," said the editors.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Critics blast liberal reporter for seizing upon hurricane devastation to belittle North Carolinians' beliefs



The Guardian, a leftist publication based in the U.K., is facing criticism over a Sunday article that seized upon the devastation wrought in North Carolina by Hurricane Helene as an opportunity to belittle locals' beliefs, attack President Donald Trump, and push a climate alarmist agenda.

The article was penned by the Guardian's "senior climate justice reporter" Nina Lakhani — a British national who previously suggested that nTrump was a terrorist and a fascist; pushed the Russian collusion hoax; claimed that America's border wall created "environmental and cultural scars"; advocated for banning white men from positions of power; and called the British monarchy a "white supremacist institution."

After insinuating that Trump and Elon Musk were to blame for delayed disaster relief, the Guardian reporter expressed concern that in her travels through Buncombe County, North Carolina, "the climate crisis was largely absent from people's thoughts" in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

Resident Twila Little Brave, for instance, told the Guardian about her struggles in the wake of the hurricane, her gratitude about being alive, and how the efforts of her community, not her government, helped her survived the ordeal.

Sharon Jarvis, a 59-year-old woman who lives on a mountain slope on the outskirts of the community, criticized the Biden administration's disaster relief or lack thereof and noted that Christian relief groups, local churches, and other volunteer or nonprofit groups — not the government — stepped into the breach to help.

David Crowder, the pastor at a Barnardsville Baptist church, discussed tough living conditions along with potential threats to local pride and the storm's transformation of the landscape.

Since Brave, Jarvis, and Crowder failed to furnish Lakhani with the talking points the foreign reporter needed for her preferred narrative, Lakhani clumsily shoehorned them into the piece herself with the help of fellow travelers.

'We've failed to communicate this in a way that reaches some of the most vulnerable people.'

Lakhani insinuated that Brave and others who "have found comfort from attributing Helene to God's will" were ignoramuses, noting that "the science is clear: the intensity of the wind and rain during Helene was supercharged by the climate crisis, and the frequency and severity of such storms will increase as the planet continues to warm — driven by the world's dependence on the burning of fossil fuels."

While dismissive of locals' religious beliefs, Lakhani appeared more than willing to accept as gospel truth an assertion from Thomas Karl, the former head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Environmental Information, that might rely on misleading and inaccurate claims.

Lakhani shared Karl's belief that "these events will become more intense and stronger. But somehow we've failed to communicate this in a way that reaches some of the most vulnerable people, while they're getting false information from places they trust."

The government watchdog group Protect the Public's Trust noted in a complaint last year that the NOAA's Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters tracking project relies on economic data and cannot as a consequence "distinguish the effect of climate change as a factor on disaster losses from the effect of human factors like increases in the vulnerability and exposure of people and wealth to disaster damages due to population and economic growth."

'This is a vile, mean-spirited article.'

The so-called Billions Project not only has been been cited in over 1,200 articles but has been characterized by the U.S. Global Change Research Program as a "climate change indicator" and had its data cited in 2023 as evidence that "extreme events are becoming more frequent and severe" in the same federal program's "Fifth National Climate Assessment."

Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. noted in a study published June in the Springer Nature journal npj Natural Hazards:

NOAA incorrectly claims that for some types of extreme weather, the dataset demonstrates detection and attribution of changes on climate timescales. Similarly flawed are NOAA's claims that increasing annual counts of billion dollar disasters are in part a consequence of human caused climate change. NOAA's claims to have achieved detection and attribution are not supported by any scientific analysis that it has performed.

Despite outstanding questions about the veracity of claims of intensifying weather, Lakhani framed Karl's statement as the "clear science," then echoed his concern about the germination of alternate viewpoints regarding the storm and broader weather patterns.

Lakhani complained that "false rumors and conspiracy theories," as well as "fossil fuel-friendly" narratives, appear "to resonate among even those directly hit by floods and fires."

When criticizing so-called "disinformation," Lakhani turned to a fellow traveler to shore up her narrative — Sean Buchan, the so-called research director at the leftist censorship outfit Climate Action Against Disinformation.

Buchan appeared to insinuate that rural North Carolinians and other disaster-struck Americans were not smart enough to grasp "climate science" because it is "complicated and nuanced and requires patience." As a result of locals' supposed inability to understand what he and Lakhani believe to be true, Buchan suggested that "propagandists and bad actors will show up in person or online to fill the information vacuum."

Matt Van Swol, a former nuclear scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Savannah River National Laboratory, called the Guardian article "absolutely disgusting."

"This is a vile, mean-spirited article from The Guardian," continued Van Swol. "Everything mountain-folk HATE about big city reporters is covered in this article."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Rubio destroys CBS News anchor with facts after she tries blaming Holocaust on free speech



CBS News' Margaret Brennan did her apparent best last month to corner or to extract concessions from Vice President JD Vance. In the "Face the Nation" interview, Vance rejected both Brennan's dated liberal presumptions and the shaky premises shoring up her various lines of attack, proving the host's best was not good enough.

Brennan, evidently still committed to hitting Vance with a critique that sticks, attacked the vice president during her interview with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, which aired on Sunday. The CBS News host concern-mongered about the impact of Vance's Friday speech at the Munich Security Conference in Germany, particularly his criticism of European censorship, and suggested that free speech set the stage for the Holocaust.

Rubio, like Vance before him, refused to indulge Brennan's fantasy and instead pointed out the falsity of her revisionist history.

In his Friday speech, Vance blasted European nations for their ruthless suppression of political movements and ideas; their destructive mass migration policies; their dismissal of citizens' concerns; and their attacks on religious liberties. Vance further expressed concern that Europe is turning its back on the values that it once shared in common with America.

While largely well received on this side of the Atlantic, various European officials took umbrage at the vice president's fact-based observations.

Germany's socialist defense minister Boris Pistorius, for instance, claimed that Vance's doubts about European democracy were "not acceptable," even though authorities in Pistorius' country have worked to ban, vilify, disarm, de-bank, and criminalize Alternative for Germany, a massively popular right-leaning populist party set for another electoral success later this month.

"He lectured about what he described as censorship, mainly focusing, though, on including more views from the right," Brennan told Rubio over the weekend. "He also met with the leader of a far-right party known as the AFD, which, as you know, is under investigation and monitoring by German intelligence because of extremism. What did all of this accomplish, other than irritating our allies?"

Rubio told Brennan that the European apoplexy over Vance's speech more or less proved the vice president's point.

'I have to disagree with you.'

"Why would our allies or anybody be irritated by free speech and by someone giving their opinion? We are, after all, democracies," said Rubio. "I think if anyone's angry about his words, they don't have to agree with him, but to be angry about it, I think, actually makes his point."

The secretary of state noted further that European leaders frequently criticize the United States, but "we don't go around throwing temper tantrums about it."

Brennan tried contextualizing European officials' irritation over Vance's speech with the help of a revisionist history, stating that Vance "was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct a genocide, and he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups."

Rubio prevented the host from skating past the insinuation that Europeans, Germans in particular, are sensitive about critiques of censorship because the Holocaust was somehow the result of free speech.

"I have to disagree with you. Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide," said Rubio. "The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews, and they hated minorities, and they hated those that they — they had a list of people they hated, but primarily the Jews."

"There was no free speech in Nazi Germany. There was none," continued Rubio. "There was also no opposition in Nazi Germany. They were a sole and only party that governed that country. So that's not an accurate reflection of history."

'People are losing their minds.'

According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Holocaust Encyclopedia, the Nazi regime abolished freedom of speech and freedom of the press in the early 1930s, shuttering or seizing anti-Nazi publications and controlling all forms of media content, including burning books deemed un-German.

Not only was free speech virtually nonexistent when the Nazis ran Germany, but in the preceding years, there were numerous limitations on speech — certainly enough to torpedo a modified version of Brennan's thesis.

Responding to an argument from a critical race theory scholar that resembled Brennan's insinuation, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression President Greg Lukianoff noted that nothing about the rise of Nazism or the Holocaust supports the claim that speech restraints could have prevented a genocide.

Lukianoff wrote:

Weimar Germany had laws banning hateful speech (particularly hateful speech directed at Jews), and top Nazis including Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch and Julius Streicher actually went to jail for violating them. The efforts of the Weimar Republic to suppress the speech of the Nazis are so well known in academic circles that one professor has described the idea that speech restrictions would have stopped the Nazis as "the Weimar Fallacy." The Weimar Republic not only shut down hundreds of Nazi newspapers — in a two-year period, they shut down 99 in Prussia alone — but they accelerated that crackdown on speech as the Nazis ascended to power. Hitler himself was banned from speaking in several German states from 1925 until 1927.

Critics blasted Brennan for her apparent historical illiteracy.

Vance wrote, "This is a crazy exchange. Does the media really think the holocaust was caused by free speech?"

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) tweeted, "Free speech caused the Holocaust in an insanely stupid take."

"People are losing their minds," wrote investigative reporter Matt Taibbi. "It's mass hysteria."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

The media’s misinformation machine is built to last — here’s why



Liberal bias in the legacy press is nothing new, but conservatives rarely delve into the “how” and “why” behind it all. With the 2024 election — and the elite-media interference that accompanied it — behind us, the legacy press has shifted from protecting the Democratic Party to attacking it in certain cases. Three books on liberal media bias explain why the media elite’s misinformation machine may never cease.

Though it’s nearly 25 years old, Bernard Goldberg’s “Bias” remains a valuable resource. It was one of the first books to address this issue and gets to the heart of the problem within the journalism industry. The book, subtitled “A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News,” recounts Goldberg’s experience as a 28-year veteran reporter at CBS. He was fired after airing complaints to the Wall Street Journal about CBS’ growing leftward drift, including that of his boss, Dan Rather.

There is no fairness, balance, or impartiality — only straight advocacy for a hard-left agenda.

Goldberg recalls his years at CBS and elsewhere, noting that the industry attracts people who want to “change the world.” Conservatives, who value religion, heritage, nation, and family and generally do not seek to upend ancient institutions, are unlikely to fit this mold. This might explain what a friend recently told me: his graduating class of 100 at a top journalism school had about “two and a half conservatives,” himself included.

Goldberg writes that these “change the world” types don’t see themselves as biased when attacking conservative policies or opinions. They view their preferences as simply “common sense” — a phrase Rather used in a conversation with Goldberg. But considering how sheltered journalists’ lives are, far removed from 99% of America, the question is: common with whom?

Goldberg notes that his colleagues were fine with lying to their audience if they believed it would draw attention to an important cause and lead to “positive change.” One example of what he calls a “noble embellishment” involved reporters in the 1980s and '90s attempting to portray heterosexuals as equally susceptible to AIDS. This tactic, designed to alarm straight people, ignored the reality that AIDS was primarily a problem among gay males. Goldberg points to an article headlined “40% of AIDS sufferers are heterosexual.” But the story failed to acknowledge that most of the 40% were intravenous drug users, with few actually contracting the disease through heterosexual sex.

“Bias” does an excellent job of exposing media do-gooders’ moral blindness. Goldberg recounts how Rather and his colleagues were furious after he accused CBS News of bias in the Wall Street Journal. One of them even compared reading the piece to discovering his wife had been raped. Such sensitivity is, of course, rich coming from an industry that supposedly supports whistleblowers and whose entire existence revolves around interfering with other industries — never mind invading people's private lives. Consider former Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz, who cried after being criticized for doxxing the social media influencer "Libs of TikTok."

Manufacturing discontent

Matt Taibbi’s 2019 book “Hate, Inc.” also exposes the media’s hypocritical oversensitivity. While on the campaign trail in 2004, for example, Taibbi recalls receiving a complaint from the Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz after apparently breaking an unwritten rule by taking video of the press section without permission. Once again, the media establishment feels aggrieved over something it does all the time.

Taibbi’s book, subtitled “Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another,” shifts from the media’s fake alarmism over liberal causes to the newer, more damaging phenomenon of “manufacturing discontent” between Republicans and Democrats. Taibbi describes this as “selling siloed anger” to attract more clicks and views. He writes that today’s mass-media consumer is often given content that simply confirms their prejudices, “about whatever or whoever the villains of the day happened to be: foreigners, minorities, terrorists, the Clintons, Republicans, even corporations.”

Taibbi harshly criticizes figures like Sean Hannity and Rachel Maddow (each featured on his book’s cover). He especially criticizes Maddow, a former friend, for pushing the “Russiagate” conspiracy theory to cope with Donald Trump’s 2016 win. Taibbi’s friend Glenn Greenwald has commented on the seriousness of pushing such a pernicious lie, noting that it likely still fuels Democrats’ bloodlust for Russia’s defeat in its conflict with Ukraine.

It’s all activism now

Outlets like Maddow’s MSNBC essentially sell a “consumer product” to people, Taibbi notes. They offer viewers a “political safe space” that aligns with a specific political party. Media studies professor Andrey Mir explores this in his 2020 book “Postjournalism and the Death of Newspapers,” where he details how the media’s business model has changed in the post-internet era, altering how news is selected and reported.

Previously, leftist media analysts like Noam Chomsky argued that the establishment press skewed coverage to placate the wealthy elite (advertisers’ most coveted demographic). Now, the press skews coverage to cater to its activist readership. With advertisers moving to more efficient technologies like Facebook and Google — which control 80% of the advertising market — newspapers have turned to what Mir calls paid-up “members” and donors for revenue. These people, like everyone else, can read the news online for free but choose to give their money to outlets because they like what they say.

Treating such outlets as advocacy groups, Mir explains, means that only the largest publications — such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, the ones most capable of spreading the message — will attract support. What these “advocacy group members” are paying for, then, is not just to stay informed, but to push the outlet’s message and shape public opinion in the way they want it to be.

Previously beholden to corporate advertisers (again, Chomsky’s view), the legacy press is now dependent on the activists who fund it. As a result, daily story selection is driven by “the most resonating pressing social issues that could justify fundraising and stimulate readers to donate.” This process incentivizes journalism to “mutate into propaganda.” There is no fairness, balance, or impartiality — only straight advocacy for a hard-left agenda.

What it means for “save-the-world” types to now work for other “save-the-world” types is that expectations for the elite media to change should be even lower. To any conservative expecting the corporate left-wing media to come to their senses after Kamala Harris’ recent defeat and perhaps reduce their bias: It’s unlikely to happen any time soon.

Newsweek tries gaslighting Americans again — this time about Trump's deportation numbers



Newsweek, a left-leaning outfit that has repeatedly prioritized narrative over facts and common sense, continued the pattern last week with a story mutilating key facts in an apparent effort to paint the Trump administration's deportation efforts so far as a relative failure.

Dan Gooding, a British reporter covering immigration for Newsweek in New York City, claimed that with the Trump administration's current rate of deportations, "it would be on track to deport half the number of migrants removed during former President Joe Biden's last full fiscal year in 2024."

The trouble with Gooding's claim, which he insinuated was evidence of President Donald Trump fumbling the ball on a major campaign promise, is that he centers it on a misreading of the facts.

The Newsweek writer apparently based his assertion on the the say-so of an unnamed "expert"; the Department of Homeland Security's Feb. 4 announcement that 5,693 illegal aliens had been deported or removed from the country during Trump's first two weeks in office; and a comparison to a dataset that also incorporates the number of foreign nationals turned away by U.S. Customs and Border Protection at the border.

'The failing legacy media has resorted to lying.'

Gooding noted that "the last monthly figures available from Biden's presidency, for November 2024, show 48,970 total removals, averaging around 12,200 a week."

That figure is, however, not the number of deportations or removals for that month. According to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, the 48,970 figure reflects total repatriations for the month of November, including removals, expulsions, and returns.

Returns, which are not based on an order of removal, include voluntary departures, voluntary returns, and withdrawals of application for admission. Returns, which accounted for the majority of repatriations in fiscal year 2024, were not mentioned in the DHS announcement where Goodman sourced the starting point for his comparison.

Alex Pfieffer, White House principal deputy communications director, told Blaze News the Newsweek article, which has yet to be corrected, is "comparing apples to oranges."

"The failing legacy media has resorted to lying instead of honestly covering President Trump's successful immigration policies," said Pfeiffer.

Although Newsweek got the facts wrong again, Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, recently made clear that he wants to beef up arrests and deportations.

Homan told NewsNation Tuesday on the topic of ICE arrests, "If you look at the rest of interior enforcement, it's about three times higher than it was a year ago today. Three times higher is good, but I'm not satisfied. There are more criminal aliens that need to be arrested, hundreds of thousands."

"Sanctuary cities are putting roadblocks up. We've got leaks. So we need to increase the arrests of illegal aliens, especially those with criminal convictions. So we're going to continue," added Homan.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Trump says raw footage of Kamala Harris' '60 Minutes' interview proves 'election interference'



Failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris' interview with "60 Minutes," which aired on Oct. 7, was a disaster replete with word salads.

At the time, keen observers deduced, on the basis of major differences between Harris' responses shown in a preview of the interview and the one presented in the final, that CBS News had engaged in deceptive edits with the apparent intention of portraying the Democrat as passably coherent ahead of the election, something the network vehemently denied.

The Federal Communications Commission, which received a formal complaint on Oct. 16 from the Center for American Rights requesting an investigation into possible news distortion, released the raw footage and full transcript of the interview on Wednesday. The footage reveals that CBS News indeed went to great lengths to make Harris appear intelligible and concise — possibly with the intention of misleading viewers.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr noted on X that the commission will now seek comment regarding the news distortion complaint through March, writing, "The people will have a chance to weigh in."

Night-and-day differences

Bill Whitaker of CBS News' "60 Minutes" asked Harris at one stage in the interview whether America lacked influence over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his strategic decisions in the Middle East. Whitaker then stated, "It seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening" to the Biden-Harris administration.

'CBS should lose its license.'

The version of the interview that went to air and was reflected in CBS News' official transcript was edited so that Harris appears to say in response, "We're not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end."

It's clear from the raw footage that Harris actually responded with one of her signature word salads:

Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted, or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region. And we're not going to stop doing that. We're not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.

Harris' answer to Whitaker's question about what the U.S. could do to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from "spinning out of control" was relatively succinct in the manipulated version that CBS News originally aired. In reality, it was another meandering mess.

Here is Harris' response as it originally appeared on CBS News:

Well, let's start with October 7. 1,200 people were massacred; 250 hostages were taken, including Americans; women were brutally raped, and as I said then, I maintain Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters. Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. This war has to end.

Here is what Harris actually said:

Well, let's start with October 7. Because obviously, what we do now must be in the context of what has happened. And as I reflect on a year ago, and that 1,200 people were massacred — young people at a festival, at a music festival — 250 hostages were taken, including Americans, women were brutally raped. And as I said then, I maintain Israel has a right to defend itself. We would. And how it does so matters. And as we fast-forward into what we have seen in the ensuing weeks and months, far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. And we know that, and I think most agree, this war has to end. And that has to be our number-one imperative, and that has been our number-one imperative. How can we get this war to end? Well, critical elements of that are we have got to get a hostage deal and a ceasefire deal done. We have to — we have to get aid in. We have to lay the path toward a two-state solution.

CBS News originally made it appear as though Harris said, in response to Whitaker's question about whether the U.S. has any sway over Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, "The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles."

In reality, Harris largely dodged the question, talking about military aid to Israel, Israel's self-defense against missile attacks, and the perceived need to pressure Israel into bringing the war to an end.

President Donald Trump noted in a Truth Social post on Thursday, "CBS and 60 Minutes defrauded the public by doing something which has never, to this extent, been seen before. They 100% removed Kamala's horrible election changing answers to questions, and replaced them with completely different, and far better, answers, taken from another part of the interview. This was Election changing 'stuff,' Election Interference and, quite simply, Election Fraud at a level never seen before."

"CBS should lose its license, and the cheaters at 60 Minutes should all be thrown out, and this disreputable 'NEWS' show should be immediately terminated," added Trump.

More gaslighting

CBS News doubled down on its denial of wrongdoing Wednesday, noting in a statement, "The 60 Minutes broadcast was not doctored or deceitful."

The network suggested further that in the case of its reworking of Harris' answer to the question of whether Netanyahu was listening to the Biden administration, "We edited the interview to ensure that as much of the vice president's answers to 60 Minutes' many questions were included in our original broadcast while fairly representing those answers."

'News distortion calculated to confuse, deceive, and mislead the public.'

Democratic FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, who was nominated by former President Joe Biden, similarly did her part to suggest that there was nothing wrong with CBS News' significant manipulation of Harris' responses, stating, "The transcript and footage of this interview provide no evidence that CBS and its affiliated broadcast stations violated FCC rules."

"The FCC should now move to dismiss this fishing expedition to avoid further politicizing our enforcement actions," continued Gomez.

Implications

The release of the footage may bode well for President Donald Trump, who filed a lawsuit against CBS News and "60 Minutes" demanding at least $10 billion in damages for the "malicious, deceptive, and substantial news distortion calculated to confuse, deceive, and mislead the public."

The lawsuit stated, "To paper over Kamala's 'word salad' weakness, CBS used its national platform on 60 Minutes to cross the line from the exercise of judgment in reporting to deceitful, deceptive manipulation of news."

"President Trump brings this action to redress the immense harm caused to him, to his campaign, and to tens of millions of citizens in Texas and across America by CBS's deceptive broadcasting conduct," wrote Trump's attorneys.

Trump's lawsuit may complicate or even kill the planned multibillion-dollar merger between CBS' parent company, Paramount, and the Hollywood studio Skydance.

The New York Times indicated ahead of the release of the interview footage that executives at Paramount were pushing for a settlement to the lawsuit — a settlement that would apparently have to do without an acknowledgment of wrongdoing from Bill Owens, the executive producer of "60 Minutes," who vowed Monday not to apologize to the 47th president "for anything we have done."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Wikipedia blacklists Blaze News and other right-leaning sources, ensuring it's a one-stop liberal propaganda shop



Wikipedia maintains that articles on its site "should be based on reliable, published sources, making sure that all majority and significant minority views that have appeared in those sources are covered."

A new study by Media Research Center Free Speech America highlighted that Wikipedia has discounted right-leaning sources as reliable and prohibited their citation in articles, all but guaranteeing that the site is little more than a repository for liberal propaganda.

It's no secret that Wikipedia's volunteer editors are predominantly ideological myopes favorable to leftist causes, ideas, and personalities and antipathetic to conservatives of various stripes.

For instance, editors at Wikipedia, whose parent company blew 29.2% of its 2023-2024 budget on race-obsessive DEI programs, tried to hide Vice President JD Vance's military accomplishments in the lead-up to the 2024 election; strategically eliminated any mention of Kamala Harris' appointment as border czar on the list of executive branch czars; advocated deleting the entry detailing the mass killings executed by communist regimes, citing an anti-communist bias; labeled Elon Musk's temporary suspension of journalists who allegedly violated his platform's terms of service as the "Thursday Night Massacre"; and gaslighted readers about the history, existence, and nature of cultural Marxism, characterizing the well-defined and well-chronicled offshoot of Marxism as a a "conspiracy theory."

'Even in cases where the source may be valid, it is usually better to find a more reliable source instead.'

A 2024 study published in Online Information Review found that Wikipedia — now run by the former chief operating officer for Planned Parenthood Federation of America and previously run by a censorious alumna of the World Economic Forum's Young Global Leader program who stated that "our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that is getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done" — suffers a "significant liberal bias in the choice of news media sources."

The Dutch researchers noted further that "this effect persists when accounting for the factual reliability of the news media."

Wikipedia, which now deals primarily in "propaganda" and exists only to "give an establishment point of view" according to co-founder Larry Sanger, has apparently leaned harder into its bias.

The new MRC study noted that Wikipedia editors are permitted to cite a variety of leftist publications that have a reputation for pushing false narratives and fake news, including Jacobin, Mother Jones, NPR, and Rolling Stone, but are precluded from citing publications not similarly staffed by liberal activists.

Citing the Wikipedia page on reliable and perennial sources, the study highlighted that numerous reputable right-leaning publications have been blacklisted.

Wikipedia states, for instance, that Blaze News, the Daily Wire, the Daily Caller, the Epoch Times, Fox News, ZeroHedge, the Washington Free Beacon, the Federalist, RedState, the Media Research Center, and the Alexander Hamilton-founded New York Post "should normally not be used" as sources and "should never be used for information about a living person."

"Even in cases where the source may be valid, it is usually better to find a more reliable source instead. If no such source exists, that may suggest that the information is inaccurate," added the Wikipedia entry on reliable sources.

'It is now only reliable for pushing a radical narrative.'

Whereas most right-leaning publications were flagged as "generally unreliable," Breitbart News appears to have been among the few singled out for a formal blacklisting. Wikipedia alleged that the "site has published a number of falsehoods, conspiracy theories, and intentionally misleading stories as fact" and complained that the publication had revealed the identity of multiple Wikipedia editors.

The New York Times qualifies as reliable despite falsely accusing President Donald Trump of lying about Democrats' abortion ambitions; characterizing the suggestion that COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan lab that conducted dangerous experiments on coronaviruses as a "fringe" "conspiracy theory lack[ing] evidence"; printing false Hamas propaganda; pushing the Russian collusion narrative; and misleading readers on various other issues.

Rolling Stone, which has paid out millions in the past for false and defamatory reporting, appears not to have learned its lesson, lying, for instance, in recent years about an imagined Florida book ban and smearing Michael Knowles of the Daily Wire. It was also characterized as "generally reliable."

Politico similarly received a reliable rating despite — or perhaps as a result of — its willingness to help a cabal of former intelligence officials interfere with the 2020 election by mischaracterizing the New York Post's reliable Hunter Biden laptop story as "Russian disinfo," and to mislead Americans about the working relationship between former President Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for the benefit of the former vice president's campaign.

According to the MRC study, only 16% of left-wing media sources were unable to secure Wikipedia's stamp of approval. Meanwhile, 100% of right-leaning sources were effectively blacklisted.

The MRC study noted further that the predicable result is that "conservatives, Republicans, and Trump appointees are smeared, maligned, and slandered by the most popular online source for information about people."

Christopher Bedford, senior editor for politics and Washington correspondent for Blaze Media, noted, "You've got to remember, none of this — none of it — is based in fact. We were right about COVID, right about Biden, right about immigration, right about trans. We were right about virtually every major contested issue impacting this country for the past 10 years, while over and over again outlets from the New York Times to PolitiFact were embarrassingly wrong."

"They can't handle that, and so the ideologues ban us," continued Bedford. "It's pathetic, but it's also dangerous, and every penny you give to support this project is a penny given against speech and truth."

Dan Schneider, MRC vice president, noted, "There used to be a joke about how Wikipedia could not be relied on by historians and academics. Wikipedia has now become the joke."

"Its radical editors and staff reveal their contempt for conservatives in almost everything they inject into descriptions," continued Schneider. "It was never something people could rely on for accurate information. It is now only reliable for pushing a radical narrative."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!