SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
media
How to Stop Billionaires from Hijacking the Midterms
The bulk of political dark money flows directly back into media companies that the nation’s richest donors control. We can break the cycle.
Oct 30, 2026
There’s a drama playing out across American screens in 2026. But not the sort you might expect. There are villains and heroes, yes, high finance and political intrigue, too. There may even be a surprise ending—but we’ll have to wait until the Nov. 3 season finale to find out.
The actual plot, though, is not unfolding on television screens or streaming platforms but in corridors of political power and extreme wealth, far from public view. It’s a tale about the hijacking of US elections by the world’s richest people.
According to the Federal Election Commission, as of early October a record-setting $16 billion and counting had been plowed into the 2026 midterm-election cycle. Hundreds of millions more have been added to that tally in the weeks since. Much of this money comes from the world’s richest oligarchs, many who built their unlimited wealth from ownership stakes in massive tech and media conglomerates.
So much for the idea that our news-and-information systems should foster the public exchange of diverse ideas that are the lifeblood of civic society.
Elon Musk has contributed just shy of half-a-billion dollars to Republican-aligned political campaigns and Super PACs for the 2026 midterms. That’s more than his total political contributions during the 2024 presidential election. With no limit on how much he can spend, Musk made the biggest electoral donation in American history—$158 million—to help one candidate (senatorial hopeful Ken Paxton of Texas).
Lesser known are the contributions lower-ranking multibillionaires have made: Mike Bloomberg, Reid Hoffman, and George Soros have contributed a combined $227 million to Democratic-aligned campaigns; GOP election initiatives have received hundreds of millions of dollars from the likes of Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz ($92 million); Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein ($150 million); and Jeff and Janine Yass ($110 million) .
Hundreds of millions more have found their way into the accounts of shadowy Super PACs that are not required to disclose their donors.
Musk millions for media manipulation
Most of this whopping cash infusion pays for political ads: The media-tracking firm AdImpact projects a record-breaking $11.6 billion of that $16 billion total—or approximately 73 percent of all political contributions—will buy ads on broadcast and cable-TV stations, radio outlets, streaming services and social-media platforms.
Viewers are left with little to help them separate fact from fiction before they head to the polls. That’s because the media outlets that serve up campaign spots have zero legal obligation to reject ads that peddle lies. While nearly half of this money goes to air political ads on broadcast outlets, the Communications Act of 1934 prohibits television and radio stations from censoring or editing candidate-sponsored ads, even when they know the content is false.
And while the Federal Communications Commission does require a degree of transparency regarding who paid for a given broadcast ad, it does not monitor or regulate the accuracy of an ad’s claims.
Since 2024, the owners of social-media platforms like Facebook, X and YouTube—which account for a growing piece of the ad-spending pie—have largely abandoned efforts to fact check the political ads that course across their networks.
The money-and-media-election complex
That’s a lot of data points to digest. But the information on political-ad spending leads to one disturbing conclusion: The bulk of money spent to manipulate and even misinform viewers flows back to media companies that many of the nation’s richest donors control. This cycle of money and influence is turning people away from meaningful political engagement, put off by the deluge of dishonest attack ads that will have aired hundreds of thousands of times before viewers become voters on Nov. 3.
It’s a toxic combination of ingredients that Free Press co-founders Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols called the “money and media election complex,” in which wealthy donors, giant corporations, politicians, regulators and corporate media align their interests against a public seeking to legitimately engage in democracy.
“The complex has tremendous gravitational power,” McChesney and Nichols wrote more than a decade ago, “which increases the degree of difficulty for those wishing to participate in elections in a manner not conducive to wealthy funders, corporate media or preservation of the status quo.”
So much for the idea that our news-and-information systems should foster the public exchange of diverse ideas that are the lifeblood of civic society. Instead we have a political system that’s beholden to billionaire donors, and a hyper-commercial media that are getting rich off keeping voters in the dark.
Media outlets must take their obligations more seriously. In exchange for First Amendment freedoms, they need to cover the money that’s poisoning our politics, expose the groups and individuals funding political ads and address the falsehoods presented in many of these spots. With little time remaining before the midterms, the time to do this reporting is now.
Right-sizing Big Media
Public policy must also address the media’s systemic failings. And while communications regulation may look fuzzy when viewed from 30,000 feet, at the ground level the consequences of bad rules and regulations come into sharper focus. Nowhere is this more evident than during elections.
Instead of nurturing democracy and free speech, commercialized media today threaten to distort it.
The lack of adequate diversity and competition in media has encouraged industry owners to think of their outlets as profit-making machines with no obligation to disclose to viewers the political money and special interests that make them tick. And the lack of local reporters holding candidates to account—the consequence of runaway media consolidation in turn spurring newsroom cutbacks and closures—in many ways explains the rise of a class of politicians who spend more time wooing wealthy contributors than attending to the needs of voters back home.
This has created a dependency between those who control political power (and need access to the media to keep it) and those who control the media (and need access to political power to keep it). This cycle has gotten so toxic that instead of nurturing democracy and free speech, commercialized media today threaten to distort it.
These systemic remedies include making political ad-spending information easily available, including exposing the true funders bankrolling Super PACs. Such disclosure should happen in the body of the ads themselves. We must also get serious about strategies and policies that foster independent, local political journalism. Free Press Action has made a number of promising inroads here through state-level legislation to fund civic media.
And we need to right-size massive media conglomerates, using existing antitrust law and media-ownership limits while strengthening other rules that have been gutted at the urging of a powerful media lobby and far-too compliant lawmakers and regulators.
There’s a growing backlash against billionaire control of our political and media systems that could make these reforms possible.
The failures of corporate media have undercut the First Amendment goal of creating, in the words of the Supreme Court in 1969, an “informed public capable of conducting its own affairs.” True participatory democracy will have no chance at survival if we fail to insist on serious changes now.
Keep ReadingShow Less
How Corporate Media Let Real Estate Industry Define Housing Crisis in Southern California
By the end of three years, local news about an LA mansion tax had evolved to be largely negative and dominated by just two narrative frames: that it "reduced housing development” and needed "to be reformed”—meaning weakened or eliminated entirely.
Oct 25, 2026
Billionaires in California are pushing to sink the wealth tax proposition on this fall’s ballot in California, which would levy a one-time 5% wealth tax on those California billionaires, with the scary—and empty—threat that they’ll leave the state and ruin the economy.
Appeals to appease the wealthiest—lest they take their money and bolt—are a common plea in California, even when society’s least wealthy are the ones most afflicted. Consider, for example, the ongoing resistance of wealthy developers to Los Angeles’ “mansion tax,” and the ability of their grievances to dominate a sympathetic news media.
In 2022, Los Angeles voters approved Measure ULA to create a dedicated, long-term funding source for solutions to homelessness in LA, including funding the construction of affordable homes and preventing homelessness by helping low-income tenants stay in their homes. The funding comes from a new tax on the most expensive real estate transactions in LA, affecting fewer than 4% of property transactions, and is one of the most ambitious measures ever taken by a US city to address the problem of homelessness and the related housing crisis.
The US desperately needs more housing, and those programs must include specific plans and sufficient funding for affordable housing to keep low-income people securely housed.
But, by the end of three years of local news coverage about Measure ULA from the Los Angeles Times and LAist, two of LA’s largest news organizations, the news about Measure ULA had evolved to be largely negative and dominated by just two narrative frames: that “ULA reduced housing development” and “ULA needs to be reformed”—meaning weakened or eliminated entirely.
At the same time, local stories about what Measure ULA was doing to reduce homelessness and support affordable housing, and the people who were aided by its programs, were exceedingly rare. For example, of the 97 reports about Measure ULA from the Los Angeles Times and LAist over three years, only 7 stories included any sourcing of people who were homeless or who were helped by a tenant program to stay in their home. And, over 30% of the stories didn’t even mention the words “homeless” or “homelessness.” This is based on my research in a study of news stories of Measure ULA in the Los Angeles Times and LAist.com from April 2023 (when the law went into effect) to March 2026.
The news coverage of Measure ULA has wide political impact. Today, those negative news frames about Measure ULA have informed the positions of local politicians (including the mayoral battle between incumbent Karen Bass and challenger Nithya Raman), have helped to put a statewide measure on the ballot to make approving local taxes more difficult, and have been adopted unproblematically by the national news media as the official story of the shortcomings of LA’s so-called mansion tax. A May 20, 2026 story in The Wall Street Journal, for example, completely encapsulated the dominant narrative set by the Los Angeles news media. The WSJ headline read: “Los Angeles Tried to Tax Mansions. Apartment Construction Tanked.”
Yet, the LA news media got it wrong, and it has warped how Southern California and the nation think about homelessness and the housing crisis.
The LA news media of this study unquestionably accepted the commercial building industry’s idea of “filtering,” which posits that building more market-rate housing will ultimately increase low-cost affordable housing by increasing overall supply. The news media popularized the trickle-down notion of filtering (without using the term) in the Los Angeles housing environment despite the existence of ample expert counterevidence.
For example, researchers at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California wrote in 2020 that “filtering can no longer be taken for granted as a ‘naturally occurring’ source of affordable housing. For one thing, the shortage crisis has caused all housing to be unaffordable, consuming a larger share of occupants’ incomes—even in the middle class—than deemed acceptable.” Similarly, a Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality study in 2026 concluded that the “market” alone doesn’t solve the problem for affordable housing, and that “public investments are necessary for the production of income-restricted, affordable housing.”
The news media’s commonsense acceptance of this business-oriented filtering mindset to housing development ends up undermining the ability of Los Angeles—and other cities across the country—to adequately respond to the need for public investment in affordable housing. The US desperately needs more housing, and those programs must include specific plans and sufficient funding for affordable housing to keep low-income people securely housed.
Meanwhile, after getting delayed by lawsuits and resistance from the real estate industry, Measure ULA has started to work: Homelessness dropped significantly in Los Angeles from 2023 to 2025, yet none of the ULA-related stories from the Los Angeles Times or LAist noted this. Although homelessness increased slightly in a 2026 report, it is still down 5.6% overall in LA since 2023. Moreover, by May 2026, the city reported that a round of $360 million in ULA funding supported 80 projects for “5,241 affordable housing units—1,528 newly constructed units and 3,713 units preserved or stabilized.”
The news media—and all of us—need to better understand the relationship of affordable housing and homelessness, and not let powerful developers and real estate interests insist that less taxation and more market-rate development will solve the problem. It won’t.
Keep ReadingShow Less
It Has a Name: Fascism
Fascism must be recognized and called by name. Meaning in the headlines. Regarding it simply as a weakening of democracy, as so many are quick to concede, is a recipe for doing nothing.
Oct 12, 2026
This is an attempt to answer the question, "What’s going on in the world," in the broadest possible terms. To do so, two sides, or two viewpoints, must be clearly and fundamentally separated. This will necessarily eliminate our national political parochialism of Democrat-Republican, woke-antiwoke, even liberal-illiberal.
The premise here is that the answer to the posed question lies in finding a form of opposition that underlies the others, namely, progress-regress. We identify it politically as radical-reactionary, revolution-counterrevolution, leftwing-rightwing.
The rightwing worldview holds that things are the way they are because at all times society has tested itself and found alternatives to be lacking. The present arrangement—the current state of society—is regarded as the natural order of things. Change is therefore to be resisted.
By the time the European fascisms of the previous century were fully recognized, it was already to late.
The leftwing worldview holds that societies, however formed, are, in each state, imperfect. Therefore, the present arrangement merely reflects the biases that formed it—one part of society gaining at the expense of another—an injustice that must be changed.
We look around the world and see a lot of looking back, not much looking forward. This tells us the rightwing worldview is presently dominating. We see it throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Germany is a particular cause for concern because of the recent regional successes of the far-right AfD, built upon remnants of National Socialism, or Nazism.
At the limits is ultra-right Israel. It commits a genocide and says it was only a response. The other side started it. Started what? Nobody starts a genocide except its perpetrator. From a leftist’s perspective, October 7 was a prison break, and, yes, prison breaks can involve atrocities. A question to consider: Are prison breaks illegal? They are if the prison was legal, but the Palestine prison has been illegal since 1967. Take away the United States, and Israel’s high officials would be in front of the dock.
How did we get to living under fascism? And how did it happen so fast? For example and perspective, let’s go back a few years and note a time when great change failed to come, even when it was dangled before the large majorities that had been clamoring for it.
Before he was a presidential candidate, Barack Obama was a strong critic of our public healthcare system. He favored single-payer universal healthcare. Shortly after being elected, President Obama met with leaders from the insurance-hospital-pharmaceutical complex that makes up our healthcare industry. What was missing? No single-payer representatives were present.
A moment aside about that term, “single-payer”: It is an industry term of obfuscation, confusing Americans about how the system works. How many people really know what it means? Contrast it with the simpler term, “universal,” or the even simpler and more direct, “national.” National healthcare. We have it for older people. It’s called Medicare.
By now, though, President Obama had tempered the “change you can believe in.” His new idea was that if we were starting from scratch, single-payer would be the way to go, but since we are not starting from scratch, the change would be too “disruptive.”
Logical thinkers, scratch your heads. Every change is disruptive. That’s the point! To disrupt the old. Medicare started from scratch, and national healthcare could as well, if the will was there.
Back to our fascist life, and here’s where you have to give credit to President Donald Trump. The rightward drift of our country began decades ago, and not just under Ronald Reagan. John Mitchell, appointed Richard Nixon’s attorney general in 1969, at the time infamously said, “This country is going to go so far to the right you won’t recognize it.” Yeah, that’s right. Both parties have become business parties. Wall Street clearly won the class war.
Trump came into the present rightward drift and accelerated it to a full fascism. He did it just like that, and he didn’t start from scratch. He caught it in the middle. Tell people that you are returning the nation to its rightful place, and pretty soon masked federal police are shooting people in the streets. Blasting speedboats on the high seas out of existence because we can. Placing people in detention-concentration camps under horrible and humiliating conditions, with or without proof of criminality. The federal government was not drowned in a bathtub. It survived to mask itself, clothed in riot gear.
And, just recently, Trump threatened to “annihilate” Iran at the United Nations General Assembly, flaunting in the forum of its creation his own criminality for the “supreme international crime” enshrined in the UN Charter, Chapter VII: Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression.
Billions of words have been written about Trump’s character deficiencies. Okay, we get it by now. Only it’s not about what he is. It’s what he’s doing, and what his heel-clicking order takers do for him. Trump is a political malignancy. In this case, it’s not cancer. It’s fascism, as far right as you can go. Like any malignancy, you remove it, and this removal can’t come too soon. Can you remove the fascism without removing Trump? You can, because he’s only a figurehead.
But first fascism must be recognized and called by name. Meaning in the headlines. Regarding it simply as a weakening of democracy, as so many are quick to concede, is a recipe for doing nothing. Waiting for the next election.
Some recent editorials from respected media have gone a little further, describing the situation as “alarming,” which fails to alarm on two counts. They don’t specifically state that we’re living under a fascism, and they don’t attempt to rally people for a remedy. Because it’s getting late.
By the time the European fascisms of the previous century were fully recognized, it was already to late. National pride is fascism’s selling point. Presently, we have entirely too many buyers.
Keep ReadingShow Less
'Brazen Attempt to Try to Intimidate Journalists': Trump DOJ Launches Antitrust Probe Into News Networks
"The investigation is nonsense," said one press freedom advocate. "Trump may view the presidency as a business venture, but news outlets’ standing up for their constitutional rights has nothing to do with antitrust law."
Oct 11, 2026
The US Justice Department has launched an investigation into whether the five major television networks violated federal antitrust law when they briefly halted pool coverage of President Donald Trump amid his administration's attempt to bar certain journalists from the White House.
The New York Times reported late Saturday that DOJ officials "contacted networks on Friday and demanded communications and materials related to the White House TV pool." ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, and Fox News rotate the responsibility of capturing and distributing footage of the president. The networks paused pool coverage last month after the Trump administration dropped CNN from its scheduled pool assignment.
Emily Covington, a spokesperson for the Justice Department, confirmed the existence of the investigation in a statement on Saturday, saying that "group boycotts among commercial competitors can violate the Sherman Act."
Press freedom organizations and other critics condemned the probe as a politically motivated attack on journalism and questioned the administration's expressed concern about antitrust violations—particularly given that the DOJ has effectively abandoned antitrust enforcement during Trump's second term.
Bruce Brown, president of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the investigation "appears to be a pretext for seeking records from the networks about how they are covering daily White House events during a media ban the president himself put in place."
"The decisions news organizations make about coverage are protected by the First Amendment, and summoning antitrust authority, on top of the retaliatory actions the White House has already taken to bar certain outlets, is another and even more brazen attempt to try to intimidate journalists," said Brown.
Seth Stern, chief of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, called the investigation "nonsense."
“The investigation is nonsense. Trump may view the presidency as a business venture, but news outlets’ standing up for their constitutional rights has nothing to do with antitrust law, no matter what Laura Loomer says," Stern added, pointing to the far-right activist's public call for an antitrust lawsuit against the major TV news networks. "Depriving Trump of the attention he craves is not a competitive harm, and in any case, antitrust law has long recognized First Amendment exceptions even when there is anticompetitive impact."
News of the DOJ investigation came after CNN, MS NOW, and Politico sued the president over his attempt to bar the outlets from the White House. Late last month, a Trump-appointed judge ordered the administration to restore White House access to the outlets as the lawsuit proceeds.
Jonathan Kanter, who headed the Justice Department's Antitrust Division under the Biden administration, told CNN on Saturday that the media networks' actions in the wake of the attempted White House ban are "not even in the same zip code of an antitrust violation."
"It’s literally freedom of speech," said Kanter. "It’s no more an antitrust violation than the reporters coming together to form the pool in the first place."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Coalition Files Emergency Motion to Stop Trump FCC From Unleashing Media Consolidation Spree
"The FCC simply cannot ignore the laws Congress makes just because the current agency head wants to."
Oct 10, 2026
A coalition of nonprofit groups and labor unions filed an emergency petition on Friday aimed at blocking the Federal Communications Commission's recent repeal of a decades-old rule that limited consolidation among television broadcasters, a move that would allow media conglomerates to seize even more control over local news stations.
The petition states that the Republican-controlled FCC's decision—pushed by Chair Brendan Carr and approved in August in a 2-1 vote along party lines—was "plainly contrary to law and violates core administrative law principles." The filing notes that Congress enacted the rule barring any single TV broadcaster from reaching more than 39% of US households—and only Congress can roll it back.
"The FCC simply cannot ignore the laws Congress makes just because the current agency head wants to," said Matt Wood, vice president of policy at Free Press, one of the groups that joined the new motion. "Chairman Carr serves only [President] Donald Trump, not the people of this country. Carr threatens broadcasters when their coverage angers the administration, but tosses them bones like this repeal when the biggest broadcast conglomerates toe the line."
The petition was submitted days after the FCC published the final text of its order repealing the National Television Multiple Ownership Rule, which Carr's FCC effectively ignored earlier this year when it approved Nexstar’s $6.2 billion acquisition of rival TV company Tegna—a deal that Trump vocally supported. Free Press noted that the merger would "give Nexstar access to 80% of US households over the nation’s broadcast airwaves."
Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders North America, said Friday that repealing the 39% cap "eliminates the only meaningful limit on TV ownership consolidation in the US, reducing media pluralism, eliminating choices for news consumers, and threatening jobs in an industry already reeling from widespread layoffs and closures."
"If allowed to move forward, this policy will benefit a small handful of powerful owners of media conglomerates, while harming journalists, local and independent TV stations, and, not least of all, the American people," said Weimers.
Cable industry groups are also taking action against the FCC over its move to repeal TV ownership constraints. Ars Technica reported earlier this month that "cable lobby groups notified the Federal Communications Commission that they will sue the agency to block its controversial repeal of the National Television Ownership Rule."
The industry's filing states that the FCC's repeal "arbitrarily and capriciously ignores the harms that will surely follow from allowing broadcast station groups to exceed the National Cap, in the form of increased retransmission consent fees for multichannel video programming distributors... and higher monthly TV bills for consumers."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Brazil on the Brink: Why Lula Is Down Against Bolsonaro Jr.
There are still three weeks until the next round, and Lula could still win, but it's gonna take a massive fight. Part of that fight is changing how the international media covers things.
Oct 05, 2026
With the Brazilian presidential election headed to a runoff, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is down 47% to 45% and faces a massive fight ahead. I wanted to give a quick analysis of what happened and where things are going next.
Lula Could Still Win if He Can Consolidate Support from Third Parties
Lula lost by only 2%, and several third-party candidates, who took a combined 8% of the vote, have publicly indicated they would not endorse Flávio Bolsonaro in the second round.
Likewise, 29 million Brazilians did not vote in this round of the runoff and may be persuaded to vote for Lula in the second round if they fear Bolsonaro.
While Brasil defeated Jair Bolsonaro narrowly in 2022, it swung right again, much like the United States. Voters are upset, and they are taking it out on the party in power.
On Tuesday, the Brazilian Senate is scheduled to vote on a measure that would shorten the Brazilian workweek from six days to five days. Bolsonaro has opposed this measure, and Lula could use the vote to mobilize workers' support against the Bolsonaro team.
It's a tough road ahead for Lula, but not impossible.
What Hurt Lula in the First Round?
Three primary factors hurt Lula in the first round. First, Lula’s age and the fact that the Workers' Party (PT) has held the presidency in Brazil for 18 of the last 24 years.
The second is that the Brazilian corporate media constantly manufactured scandals against Lula.
Finally, the role that US President Donald Trump played in training and validating the right-wing in Brasil, while not decisive, provided critical support. Here's what went wrong for Lula.
1. Lula is 80 & His Party Ruled Brasil for 18 of the Last 24 Years
Like former US President Joe Biden, one problem Lula faces right now is that he is 80 years old. He doesn’t look as sharp as he used to, while Flávio Bolsonaro is nearly half his age—45 years younger.
Additionally, Lula’s party, the Workers’ Party (PT), has held the presidency for 18 of the last 24 years. Lula and Dilma, both members of the Workers' Party (PT), held the presidency from 2002 to 2016. Lula was reelected in 2022 for his record third term. No Brazilian has ever won a third term.
Although the PT has rarely controlled Congress, it is seen as the ruling party because it has held the presidency for 18 of the last 24 years. Voters are likely to associate any problems in the country with the PT, which has held the presidency for so long.
While Brasil defeated Jair Bolsonaro narrowly in 2022, it swung right again, much like the United States. Voters are upset, and they are taking it out on the party in power.
Even worse, Lula failed to recruit young candidates, who may have excited voters to turn out in tight races. In what should have been a competitive Senate election in Rio de Janeiro, the PT recruited 84-year-old Bendedita da Silva, who lost in a landslide to Bolsonaro allies.
Last week, Lula skipped the presidential debate; so did Bolsonaro and its unclear how much this decision might have hurt him.
Lacking excitement, nearly 29 million Brazilians did not vote despite it being obligatory in Brasil.
2. Brazilian Media Manufacturing Scandals Against Lula
The Brazilian media market is extremely consolidated, and the heads of major networks like Globo have been going after Lula hard. They have been accused of manufacturing scandals against Lula.
Last November, the financial institution Banco Master collapsed amid allegations of massive fraud. The bank was being run like a Ponzi scheme, resulting in the largest financial collapse in Brazilian history, with nearly $8 billion in investors’ funds lost.
Despite Banco Master CEO Daniel Vorcaro being a very vocal Bolsonaro supporter, the Brazilian media has repeatedly tried to link the scandal to Lula’s Workers’ Party, as Vorcaro cultivated political ties on both sides of the aisle.
Every attack on Lula by the Trump administration generated headlines in Brasil and validated the wild claims made by Bolsonaro allies of a flawed Brazilian justice system.
Lula’s son, businessman Fábio Luís da Silva, commonly known as “Lulinha,” was scrutinized over large bank accounts worth millions of dollars. For months, Lulinha has offered to open his books and has claimed that he received no special favors from Banco Master. Still, the media repeatedly raised questions about Lulinha’s alleged impropriety.
At one point, media giant TV Globo made a giant infographic web with arrows, showing a complex network linked to Lula. Other reporters widely ridiculed the conspiracy theory map, and TV Globo eventually had to apologize publicly on air.
Then, in May, The Intercept Brasil released a WhatsApp message from Flávio Bolsonaro to Vorcaro, asking him for more than $26 million to fund a strange English-language biopic named Dark Horse, about his father. In the film, Jair Bolsonaro is portrayed by right-wing American actor Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in the controversial 2004 film The Passion of the Christ.
Polling throughout the spring and summer showed Lula leading as the scandal remained fresh in people’s minds. Then, the Brazilian corporate media went into high gear to attack Lula. They went after Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who led the prosecution that jailed Bolsonaro.
Moraes has accused Brazilian Supreme Court Justice André Mendonca, a Bolsonaro appointee, of failing to follow proper procedure in his handling of the Banco Master scandal, leaking information to the press on Lula’s political allies while hiding information on Bolsonaro’s allies.
Moraes asked the Brazilian Federal police to investigate Mendonça's violation of federal investigation procedures and for selectively leaking information to the press that would make Lula allies look bad while suppressing information on Bolsonaro allies.
Moraes accused Mendonça of attempting to “steer the production of evidence toward falsely accusing Supreme Court justices of crimes, expressly naming Justices Gilmar Mendes, Dias Toffoli, Luiz Fux, Alexandre de Moraes, and Nunes Marques, as well as the prosecutor general and the director-general of the Federal Police.”
3. Trump Trained and Emboldened Bolsonaro Allies
While I don’t want to underestimate the strength of fascists within Brasil, it’s important to note that Trump and his operatives did help the Bolsonaro family pull off an impressive comeback.
In March 2025, Eduardo Bolsonaro fled to the United States rather than face prosecution in Brasil for his role in trying to orchestrate a coup, and he was granted permanent residency status in July. While in the United States, Eduardo Bolsonaro has worked closely with Trump officials, including Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions Richard Grenell, to oust Lula from power.
“It was a privilege to speak with Ambassador Richard Grenell at President Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago,” Eduardo Bolsonaro wrote on Instagram following a meeting with Grenel in 2025. “The conservative movement is global—and we are just getting started.”
Eduardo Bolsonaro worked closely with top Trump aides like Brad Parscale, Trump’s director of digital strategy, to learn the social media strategy that led Trump to win reelection.
As president, Trump worked hard to attack Lula. He placed punitive tariffs on Brazil for convicting Jair Bolsonaro, Eduardo’s father, for attempting to assassinate Lula and overthrow his government in 2022. These tariffs hurt Brasil’s economy.
More importantly, Trump’s constant denunciation of the jailing of Bolsonaro validated conspiracy theories of right-wingers that the justice process was flawed. When Alexandre de Moraes, who led Bolsonaro's conviction, was implicated in the Banco Master scandal, it only reinforced these conspiracy theories.
Ahead of the Brazilian presidential election, the Trump administration has labeled Brasil as a major distributor of cocaine and attempted to paint Lula as weak on taking on drug gangs.
In June, the Trump administration labeled two gangs as “terrorist organizations," something which the Lula administration has repeatedly resisted because of fears of how the Trump administration could intervene in law enforcement and military matters in Brasil.
Still, every attack on Lula by the Trump administration generated headlines in Brasil and validated the wild claims made by Bolsonaro allies of a flawed Brazilian justice system.
On Friday, the Trump administration closed its embassy in Brasil and all of its consulates in a move that many saw as a scare tactic designed to interfere once again in the Brazilian presidential election.
The same day, the Brazilian federal police and intelligence service ABIN were warning of a possible US coup attempt. It was already known that Trump operatives were training operatives in Brasil, and the Brazilian federal police report described in depth how much Trump's intervention had shifted things in Brasil.
International Media Failed to Check Brazilian Media
Finally, the international media completely ignored the Brazilian presidential election, allowing corporate media within Brasil to dominate the conversation without any accountability from the international media.
There are still three weeks until the next round, and Lula could still win, but it's gonna take a massive fight. Part of that fight is changing how the international media covers things.
Payday Report can help play a small role in getting the US press more involved. The Washington Post once cited Payday Report in a front-page story for changing the way the pandemic strike wave was discussed, and maybe we can play a small role in getting American reporters to pay attention.
Donate to help Payday Report cover the fight ahead.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump White House Restores Access to Politico, MS NOW, CNN Reporters Hours After Judge's Order
Journalists from each of the outlets were barred from entering the White House complex just hours after a Trump-appointed federal judge ordered the president to reverse his ban.
Sep 24, 2026
Update (1:30 pm ET):
Journalists from Politico, MS NOW, and CNN said their access to the White House has been restored, hours after they were denied access to the complex despite a federal judge's Thursday morning order temporarily reversing President Donald Trump's ban on the outlets.
The director of the White House's press operations attested in a court filing that the administration had restored the outlets' access:
BREAKING: White House attests that access for POLITICO, CNN and MSNOW was restored as of 9:55am.https://t.co/32pQuZ1NmB pic.twitter.com/CZTqpJQeb9
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) September 24, 2026
Earlier (8:40 am ET):
Trump administration officials denied Politico, MS NOW, and CNN reporters access to the White House complex on Thursday morning, in blatant violation of a federal judge's decision ordering President Donald Trump to immediately reverse his ban on the three outlets.
US District Court Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, ordered the White House in an early Thursday ruling to "immediately return, reinstate, and restore" press passes to reporters from the three outlets.
Politico reported that its journalist had "his press credentials confiscated" upon trying to enter the White House complex hours after Kelly's ruling.
Laura Barrón-López, a White House reporter for MS NOW, said she was also denied access to the White House. She said a Secret Service agent confiscated her press badge after it failed to scan properly.
Barrón-López said it is "not clear, based on the interaction that I had, whether or not this is a defiance... of the court order, or it's some kind of incompetence or lag in the system where they have not updated our press badges."
Watch her account:
MS NOW reports that their White House reproter was denied access to the White House this morning despite a court order demanding she have access pic.twitter.com/wqUiB413jV
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 24, 2026
According to CNN, one of its reporters and a photojournalist were "denied access to the White House grounds" early Thursday.
"There was no reason provided for the refusal and CNN will continue to try to gain access as regular business hours start," the outlet added.
Earlier:
A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump to immediately restore White House access to CNN, MS NOW, and Politico, prominent media outlets that the president banned last week.
Timothy Kelly, a Trump-appointed judge for the US District Court in Washington, DC, granted the media outlets' request for a temporary restraining order as the legal fight continues. Kelly ruled that the outlets showed "a likelihood of success" on their claim that the president's ban and revocation of reporters' press credentials violated the Fifth Amendment's due process protections.
The judge rejected the Trump administration's claim that the president's ban on the three outlets was necessary to protect national security.
"The court is skeptical—at least on this record—that defendants’ interest in safeguarding national security is the actual motivation for, or is even advanced by, the revocation of plaintiffs’ hard passes," Kelly wrote. "The record lacks factual support for defendants’ contention that the revocation of plaintiffs’ hard passes will in fact protect national security or that national security will be endangered if the court orders their passes reinstated while this litigation proceeds."
Trump's initial announcement of the ban, on September 18, said nothing about national security. The president vaguely accused the outlets he has long attacked of publishing "FICTION and LIES."
In letters submitted to the court as part of the ongoing legal fight over the ban, the White House press office cited examples of reporting from the three outlets that it claimed damaged US national security.
In its letter to CNN, the White House points to the outlet's reporting on "construction details related to the East Wing bunker" and a story on the US military's bombing of an Iranian elementary school.
Ted Boutrous, the lawyer representing the news outlets, welcomed Kelly's decision to grant the temporary restraining order, which will be in effect for 14 days.
"This is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process, and the rule of law," Boutrous said. "We greatly appreciate the court’s swift action."
Kelly ordered the Trump administration to "immediately return, reinstate, and restore" White House press passes to reporters from CNN, MS NOW, and Politico.
It's unclear how swiftly the news outlets will resume their typical coverage of the White House following the judge's order. Earlier this week, a White House event was broadcast with no audio after the administration dropped CNN from its TV press pool duties, prompting other major networks to ditch pool coverage in solidarity with CNN.
On Wednesday, when Trump greeted Chinese President Xi Jinping upon his arrival in the US, no major TV network captured the moment.
"Other television outlets whose crews were present, according to signs on their tripods and cameras, were NewsNation, Newsmax, Right Side Broadcasting Network, One America News, and LindellTV," The Associated Press reported.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Closing the Strait of No News
Together, media organizations have the ability to cut off the air supply that Trump routinely sucks out of every situation. If they translate this tactic into a much longer-term strategy, they could shift the relationship onto much healthier ground.
Sep 23, 2026
In his typical fashion, which many commentators characterize as act first, think never, President Donald Trump has handed the media, i.e., the enemy of the people, an extremely potent weapon if only they have the fortitude to use it. Much as his illegal and unwinnable war enabled the Iranians to translate their potential control over the Strait of Hormuz into an actual lever of economic, military, and geopolitical power, so too his “ban” on CNN, MSNOW, and Politico could initiate a shift in the power dynamics of Trump-press relations.
If the initial and much too rare show of solidarity among the news organizations can be sustained long enough to demonstrate their ability to deprive Trump of the constant attention he so desperately craves, this could become the basis for a much-needed recalibration of the bully-bullied interactions.
The constitutional aspects of the case are startlingly clear. It is almost (and in these fraught moments, the “almost” is necessary) impossible to imagine the circumstances that would sustain Trump’s ban. His own statements make clear that the exclusions (and those that might follow) are based on viewpoint, a basis specifically and repeatedly denied by the courts. Given that the lawsuit filed by the three banned organizations is being handled by the same judge that ruled against Trump when he barred CNN’s then-reporter Jim Acosta, the outcome appears predictable. If so, the three plaintiffs will be reinstated and confiscated credentials will be returned.
If and when that happens, what should these news outlets and the others who are now standing with them do? Should they return to the same abusive environment that saw them banned in the first place? An environment that degrades and demeans their work whenever Trump needs to feed his ego or his base? Or should they, with their new-found cudgel of silencing him, make a series of demands to shift the ground on which they might operate moving forward? The present actions have already demonstrated that, together, these media organizations have the ability to cut off the air supply that Trump routinely sucks out of every situation. If they translate this tactic into a much longer-term strategy (the threat of boycott) they could shift the relationship onto much healthier ground. Just as a bonus, Trump’s ranting and raving about his lack of coverage would, itself, be a ratings bonanza.
What kinds of demands should constitute the new order? First and foremost, should be an insistence that Trump treat the press in general with the respect that the First Amendment requires. No more “enemy of the people” and empty “fake news” epithets. Secondly, and equally importantly, should be a no-nonsense prohibition on attacks on individual journalists, particularly women journalists, and most especially female journalists of color. No more threatening lunges; no more “quiet piggy;” no more comments on appearance or (dis)ability or (too thinly veiled) race. Finally (although in cooler-head moments more demands might appear), the representatives of the press should insist on equal access for reporters and journalists from all viewpoints on the political spectrum. If Trump and his nearby psychophants are unwilling to negotiate these terms in good faith, and then abide by them, the press as a solidary group should be ready, able, and willing to close the Strait of No-News. After all, a spine is a terrible thing to waste!
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Event Broadcast With No Audio After He Booted Press Pool Members
A host on the Trump-friendly Newsmax network said it seemed his exile of the press was "backfiring just a little bit.”
Sep 21, 2026
It turns out that President Donald Trump may not have thought through all the consequences before he banned some of his most hated news outlets from the White House.
After Trump declared CNN, MS NOW, and Politico "fake news" and exiled them from the White House grounds on Friday, the other networks that make up the White House press pool—including ABC, CBS, NBC, and even Fox News—agreed to boycott their pool duties on Monday in solidarity with the banned outlets.
"There will be no replacement pool put in place," wrote Bryan Boughton, Fox News’ Washington bureau chief and chair of the White House television pool, in an internal notice to news organizations obtained by Politico.
It became clear exactly what that meant when the White House attempted to broadcast a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Trump's new helipad on the White House lawn on Monday afternoon.
The president's voice could be heard faintly. But his words were inaudible over the whir of a helicopter parked nearby.
"There's no microphone because the pool cameras aren't there," explained Bianca de la Garza, who was covering the event for the Trump-friendly outlet Newsmax.
The anchor said this was maybe "one example" of the president's attack on the media "backfiring just a little bit."
As of Monday afternoon, there is no reported effort by the White House to find a new press pool. This may prove problematic for Trump as he attends the United Nations General Assembly this week.
Meanwhile, the three outlets banned by Trump filed a lawsuit on Monday, arguing that their removal from White House grounds violated the First Amendment. Previous attempts by the Trump administration to ban news outlets from covering its activities have been shot down in court.
Aidan McLaughlin, the Washington correspondent for Vanity Fair, suggested on social media that, at the rate things are going, a lawsuit may not even have been necessary.
"He’s gonna lift the ban by the end of the week," he predicted.
Keep ReadingShow Less
‘Effectively a Boycott’: Major TV Networks Ditch Pool Coverage of Trump in Solidarity With CNN
"There will effectively be no TV coverage of Trump's UN visit or other presidential events," said one media reporter. "This is a very big deal."
Sep 21, 2026
The major US television networks launched what was described as a boycott against TV pool coverage of President Donald Trump on Monday after the White House dropped CNN from the network's scheduled pool assignment, escalating the administration's assault on the country's most prominent media organizations and press freedom.
CNN was set to act as the television pool network accompanying the president during his trip to the United Nations General Assembly this week, but the administration stripped the network of its assignment shortly after Trump banned CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House, prompting a retaliatory lawsuit from the three outlets.
The major television networks typically rotate responsibility for traveling video coverage of the president. Bryan Boughton, Washington, DC bureau chief for Fox News and current chair of the TV press pool, said Monday morning that "effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the president."
"This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties," Boughton added. "There will be no replacement pool put in place."
Scott Nover, a media reporter with The Washington Post, noted that "it's effectively a boycott by the fellow members—ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX."
"There will effectively be no TV coverage of Trump's UN visit or other presidential events, though I imagine smaller networks may take the White House's own feed," Nover wrote on social media. "This is a very big deal and one only possible because of solidarity from the whole pool."
The TV press pool developments unfolded as CNN, MS NOW, and Politico announced early Monday that they intend to sue the Trump administration for banning them from the White House. The outlets argued that the ban, which Trump announced late last week, endangers press freedom and "the public’s right to independent journalism free from government interference."
CNN, MS NOW and Politico announced the lawsuit in a joint statement, describing the legal action as an effort to "protect our First Amendment rights and defend the principle that the government does not decide what the press reports or publishes."
"Without notice or process, the White House revoked our journalists' credentials because it objected to our reporting," the news organizations said. "Left unchallenged, this threatens press freedom."
The lawsuit came after journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico were denied access to the White House grounds early Saturday, hours after Trump announced in a social media tirade that he was banning the outlets. Trump, without providing any examples, accused the three outlets of publishing "fiction and lies when they're covering the president of the United States"—and suggested other news outlets could also be banned in the near future.
When Politico reporter Cheyenne Haslett attempted to enter the White House on Saturday in the wake of Trump's social media post, Secret Service denied her access and confiscated her press pass. Journalists from the other two outlets reported similar experiences.
"We stand by her and all reporters here covering the White House," Jonathan Greenberger, Politico's global editor-in-chief, wrote in response to the incident involving Haslett. "We will vigorously defend our First Amendment rights."
The media outlets' lawsuit is set to be filed Monday in a federal district court in Washington, DC. The suit aims to restore the outlets' White House access and alleges that Trump's ban violates free press and due process protections.
"The president's ban of CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from the White House is a direct assault on the First Amendment and a blatant violation of due process," said Ted Boutrous, an attorney for the outlets. "The president has been explicit that this ban is intended to punish reporting he doesn’t like and to intimidate journalists and news organizations covering him and his administration. This ban on the free press harms the American people, who are entitled to rigorous, fact-based coverage of the president of the United States. The law is on our side across the board, and we look forward to presenting our arguments to the court as soon as possible."
Jameel Jaffer, executive director, Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, applauded the news outlets' lawsuit and said his organization would support them in court. The Knight First Amendment Institute has previously supported The Associated Press and other news outlets in successful legal fights against the president, who has shown blatant disdain for press freedom during his two terms in office.
"We’re glad to see that these news organizations are suing," said Jaffer. "The president’s decision to bar them from the White House for the content of their reporting is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment. It’s an attack both on press freedom and the public’s right to independent information about the government."
Keep ReadingShow Less
See More
Most Popular
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy