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    What can we learn from RFK’s ‘erotic poetry’? That Americans need to get better at enjoying a scandal | Marina Hyde

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    Literally nothing on this earth takes itself as seriously as American journalism. There are rogue-state dictators it’s more permissible to laugh at than the endlessly hilarious pretensions of newsmen and newswomen in the United States. The crucial difference between the British press and US press is that at least we in the British press know we’re in the gutter. The Americans have always imagined – and so loudly – that they are involved in some kind of higher calling. Guys, I love you and stuff, but get over it, because you’re missing one of the great jokes of the century. Yourselves.I don’t deny that everything’s bigger in America. Our former health secretary had a knee-trembler up against his office door in the pandemic; their current one apparently wrote felching … poetry, is it … felching poetry? … to a superstar journalist who was worrying about his brainworm, yet the story is being written up like it’s Dante, instead of X-rated Italian brainrot.We are, by the way, talking about the tale of Olivia Nuzzi, Ryan Lizza and Robert F Kennedy. If you’ve missed this one, you have a great treat in store. Olivia and Ryan were hotshot political journalists (and a couple) covering presidential campaigns and writing a joint book about the 2020 one, when Ryan discovered last year that Olivia had had what is primly described as a “digital affair” with wingnut presidential candidate RFK. It all blew up, there was some legal hokey-cokey, they lost their jobs, she fled to LA, RFK became health secretary. He’s got bigger brainworms to fry; the other two are now “breaking their silence”.And everything – everything – about it is darkly hysterical. It should obviously be being written as comedy. Instead, the story is being chronicled with maximum portentousness by its own protagonists. First, in Nuzzi’s forthcoming memoir/state-of-the-nation something-or-other, which is actually entitled American Canto. And second in Lizza’s Substack, which is genuinely called Telos. I can’t.No, hang on – I can. Like so many of the self-regarding big-hitters of the US fourth estate, this sundered pair very much need you to know that serious prose is occurring. Both of them adore a sledgehammer metaphor. With Lizza, it’s bamboo. The bamboo in the couple’s apartment courtyard “had become a metaphor for our decade-long entanglement”. Righto. “If not tamed, [it] would march through the entire courtyard and kill everything.” Thanks for flagging, mate. “I spent hours hacking at the sprouts to keep the bamboo at bay, just as I had with all the secrets that Olivia and I shared.” Is there much more of this? Yes, would seem to be the answer. “I should have known that it was futile and that, at some point, the bamboo would take over the garden, and that’s all anyone would see.” Come on Ryan, batter me round the head with the bamboo analogy one more time – I’m so close to getting the point.With Nuzzi, it’s wildfires. She flees to LA after the RFK story breaks, staking down seemingly dozens of signposts to where we are going as the burning takes hold. “10:30 a.m., 10 acres burning. 10:50 a.m., 20 acres burning … 2 p.m., 700 acres burning. 3 p.m., 1,300 acres burning … 12:30 a.m., 3,000 acres burning. 9 a.m., 5,000 acres burning. 11:45 a.m., 12,000 acres burning. 1:30 p.m., 16,000 acres burning … 9 p.m., 20,000 acres burning. 8 a.m., 22,000 acres burning. 4 p.m., 24,000 acres burning.” OK GOT IT. Luckily, because we’re literary dumbos, Nuzzi has already explained: “You cannot outrun your life on fire.” Makes u think. Could we have some crossover metaphor event where the bamboo catches fire? Maybe for Black Friday.With heavy heart, apparently, the wider US media must cover the tale, yet not even America’s dainty journalese can rob the story of its full-spectrum trash merriment. In fact, in some cases it adds to it. Nuzzi’s lawyer told the New York Times his client would “not dignify efforts to impugn her character with any future response”. Dialling in from an Edith Wharton novel, there. I believe the felching poetry dropped a couple of days later.It’s so sad that, across American newsrooms, hankies must be overtly pressed to noses about all this, while refresh keys can only be covertly pressed to see if any more has dropped. Pretty much the only splashy thing Vanity Fair has done under its new editorship was hire Nuzzi as West Coast editor and run her book extract, so it should be absolutely zero surprise to learn that, as a result of something they read in Telos – again, “Telos”!!! – the magazine is reviewing the appointment. “We were taken by surprise,” intoned a Vanity Fair spokeswoman, “and we are looking at all the facts.” For heaven’s sake, buck up and stop being so absolutely wet. This sort of thing is why you hired her. Just own it and allow yourself a bit of fun.Alas, they seem bent on playing it like they’re in the midst of some boring ethics crisis, when you can’t help feeling that ship has sailed. May we humble outsiders offer a word of advice? Guys, you just need to stop being so American and serious about it all. And, indeed, about America. God knows we lesser countries have put some ghastly people in charge ourselves, but you do have to allow your international underlings the occasional cackle at the fact that in your great nation, Donald Trump has now become president, twice. When you lot shit the bed, the whole world has to lie in it – so do at least have the delicacy to realise that once dignity has gone, a good laugh is how the rest of us get by. Come along and join us: you’ll like it if you try it.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion

    Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

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      Fox Corp chief told Sean Hannity that Trump could not go on air in 2020 if he attacked network

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      New revelations about the tense relationship between Fox News and Donald Trump in the fall of 2020 have emerged in a trove of thousands of court documents released on Sunday as part of a massive defamation lawsuit filed against the network by voting technology company Smartmatic.One exchange showed that Lachlan Murdoch, the chief executive of Fox News parent company Fox Corp, told star anchor Sean Hannity in a 1 October 2020 text chain that Trump could not appear on Fox again if he attacked the network.“Sean, sorry, but the president is not coming back on air if he uses it to attack us,” Murdoch wrote to a group that also included his father, Rupert, and Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott. “It is the same rule we have with the other side. This is a golden rule,” signing the message with “Thx L.” (In a 1 October 2020 interview with Hannity, Trump said Fox was “a much different place than it used to be”.)Hannity’s response to Murdoch’s message was redacted. The situation got worse in the wake of the 2020 presidential election, when many Fox News supporters turned against the network, including Trump himself, leading to something of an existential crisis at the long-dominant channel.In a separate correspondence after the November 2020 presidential election, after many Trump supporters had grown angry at Fox News over its call of the state of Arizona for Joe Biden, Hannity acknowledged the anger from the president’s side. “Trump people hate Fox,” he wrote to a producer. “Hate hate hate.”While Fox publicly stood behind its Arizona call in the face of internal and external blowback, according to a 6 November 2020 email from Scott, Lachlan Murdoch said that Fox should consider reversing its call of the state of Arizona for Biden if his margin fell below 1% of the vote. “I’m not recommending we do that at this time,” Scott said.The documents released on Sunday are copies of the exhibits that were cited in previous filings between the parties. They include both longer versions of previously cited conversations and many new internal text messages and email exchanges that have not previously been made public.In a previously unreported 23 November 2020 email to his son, Rupert Murdoch suggested they chat about the viewer backlash against Fox News. “Getting killed in audience numbers,” he wrote. “All day long. We have to keep our nerve but worth a discussion. Won’t hurt subscriber revenue, but will soon cut into [advertisements].” Lachlan Murdoch wrote that he would call his father the following morning. “Agree re FNC,” he wrote. “Keeping me awake at night.”In another previously unreported 21 January 2021 email to his son Lachlan, Rupert wrote that he was “still getting criticism for [Fox News Channel]. Saying leading voices encouraged stolen election bullshit and pushed Jan 6 rally.” In the same thread, Murdoch talked about ousting business network host Lou Dobbs. “Just take him off the air and negotiate later,” he wrote. Dobbs’s show was cancelled the following month.The elder Murdoch also talked about hiring former Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile, saying that it’s “hard to attack a Black woman”.The documents released on Sunday also included a version of Smartmatic’s deposition of Rupert Murdoch. When asked by a Smartmatic lawyer whether he took any steps “to make sure that hosts with shows on Fox News Media did not endorse claims about the 2020 election being stolen,” Rupert Murdoch responded: “No. No.”“I was very happy [with] the way Fox News was handling it,” Rupert Murdoch said of the network’s post-election coverage.Rupert Murdoch also acknowledged that Fox News made a decision to “pivot” after the election by “moving away from our support of Trump”. But he said it was difficult to do so. “Our very large audience tended to be Trump supporters,” he said. “We didn’t want to upset them totally. That, we did before. They’d been attacking us.”Murdoch also affirmed that he believed Trump’s claims of a stolen election contributed to the January 6 US Capitol attack – though he denied it was a “riot” and said it was “intended to be just be a rally outside the Capitol”.In his own deposition, Lachlan Murdoch said he didn’t think Fox News did anything to “endorse” claims of election fraud made by Trump’s supporters. He also re-affirmed the journalistic value of covering the president’s election fraud claims. “I can’t imagine a more newsworthy story than the sitting president of the United States calling into question the election results,” he said, according a transcript of his deposition.“We did not make the allegations against Smartmatic. The president and his lawyers and associates made the allegations against Smartmatic,” Lachlan Murdoch said. “We reported those allegations, which I believe were incredibly newsworthy. So we did not make an apology for reporting the sitting president’s allegations about a voting system.”Smartmatic was indicted by the Department of Justice last month as part of an investigation into bribery in the Philippines. The company denies the charges, calling the indictment “targeted, political, and unjust”.Fox News has strenuously denied Smartmatic’s claims and said the company has vastly overstated its value.“The evidence shows that Smartmatic’s business and reputation were badly suffering long before any claims by President Trump’s lawyers on Fox News and that Smartmatic grossly inflated its damage claims to generate headlines and chill free speech,” a Fox News spokesperson said. “Now, in the aftermath of Smartmatic being criminally charged with bribery in the Philippines and the Government’s motion to include evidence of Smartmatic’s business dealings in Venezuela and Los Angeles County, we are eager and ready to continue defending our press freedoms.”Fox had petitioned the judge in the case to delay the trial, pending the criminal case against Smartmatic, but on Monday that effort was denied.“Today’s decision is an important victory for Smartmatic as we progress in our efforts to hold Fox accountable for its lies,” a Smartmatic spokesperson said. “The court made clear that Fox’s attempts to delay accountability won’t work, and its day of reckoning is coming.”Both parties are tentatively scheduled to argue their case for summary judgement next month. More

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      in US Politics

      Many prominent Maga personalities on X are based outside US, new tool reveals

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      Many of the most influential personalities in the “Make America great again” (Maga) movement on X are based outside of the US, including Russia, Nigeria and India, a new transparency feature on the social media site has revealed.The new tool, called “about this account,” became available on Friday to users of the Elon Musk-owned platform. It allows anyone to see where an account is located, when it joined the platform, how often its username has been changed, and how the X app was downloaded.As soon as the update was rolled out, users found numerous Maga and rightwing influencers who presented themselves as patriotic Americans were operating from other countries.“This is easily one of the greatest days on this platform,” wrote liberal influencer Harry Sisson. “Seeing all of these MAGA accounts get exposed as foreign actors trying to destroy the United States is a complete vindication of Democrats, like myself and many on here, who have been warning about this.”The account MAGANationX, with nearly 400,000 followers and a bio reading “Patriot Voice for We The People”, is actually operated from eastern Europe, according to the Daily Beast. Another popular profile, IvankaNews, an Ivanka Trump fan account with around one million followers that frequently posts about illegal immigration, Islam and support for Trump, was revealed to be based in Nigeria.Another user also uncovered several additional cases. Dark Maga, a smaller account with roughly 15,000 followers, is run from Thailand. MAGA Scope, which has more than 51,000 followers, operates out of Nigeria, while MAGA Beacon is based in south Asia.Users on Reddit also joined the exposé effort, posting examples of accounts that appeared to misrepresent their origins. One Reddit user posted a screenshot of a woman who claimed to live in Texas but instead appeared to be located in Russia, though as of Sunday, the user named in the post appears to have a US location. Many in the comments posted other examples they found.Bots spreading misinformation and propaganda has been a long-running problem on Twitter, a problem that has been significantly exacerbated since Musk bought it in October 2022 and then renamed it X. Its AI chatbot, Grok, has also been found to frequently make and amplify false claims. More

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      in US Politics

      Meet the conservative lawyer causing headaches for major news networks

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      In just 14 months, Daniel Suhr, the 40-year-old president of a two-person, Chicago-based, conservative legal organization called the Center for American Rights, has emerged as a thorn in the side of the major US broadcast news networks at a time when they face both financial and political vulnerabilities.Suhr has had a key ally in Brendan Carr, who was hand-picked by Donald Trump to serve as the chair of the powerful Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as the Trump administration has sought new avenues to take on the mainstream media. Carr has resuscitated several complaints that were filed by Suhr and dismissed at the end of Joe Biden’s administration and has seemingly factored in Suhr’s suggestions when reviewing media mergers.One of those complaints, in October 2024, dealt with the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with then vice-president Kamala Harris. It preceded by about two weeks a $10bn lawsuit by Trump against CBS that made similar claims and upended the political-media world for the next nine months. Suhr’s complaint led to CBS’s unprecedented decision to release the full, unedited transcript and video library from the Harris interview under pressure from Carr. And when Carr’s FCC ultimately approved Paramount’s long-delayed merger with Skydance Media in July, it included conditions that Suhr had asked for: the appointment of an ombudsman to handle complaints of bias at CBS News and the elimination of all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.“I think the commission did a great job in the final order,” Suhr said in a recent sit-down with the Guardian. “The commission’s order said that Paramount committed to news that was ‘fair, unbiased, and fact-based.’ I think those are great words. I would love to see all of our news be fair, unbiased and fact-based. I think that articulation of the standard is in many ways the fruition of what started with the one complaint.”It’s all a bit of a whirlwind for Suhr, who filed his first media complaint in September 2024. Critics of the way that Carr has used the commission’s limited regulatory oversight over the content of television networks to exert pressure have some questions – and some concerns – about how Suhr suddenly became such a key player in the administration’s regulatory apparatus, even as they say he’s very pleasant to deal with.“When you talk to him, he seems like a very reasonable, very articulate, smart guy,” said Gigi Sohn, a longtime consumer advocate who was nominated by former president Joe Biden to serve on the FCC but did not ultimately do so. “It’s just kind of curious that this person has come out of nowhere and is so active and is so tied with the chair. I think it raises questions that should be answered.”One of those questions is whether Suhr is taking his cues directly from Carr, who shares his belief that the mainstream media is biased in favor of Democrats.Over coffee recently in Washington DC, where Suhr had traveled to attend a dinner hosted by the conservative Federalist Society, he sought to explain how exactly his organization became a central actor in the conservative case against alleged bias in the media – and how he became what Sohn called “a cog in the Carr wheel”, though Suhr sees it differently.While Suhr said he’s a “big fan” of Carr, he pushed back on the notion that he works hand-in-glove with him. “I don’t run my complaints by [Carr] ahead of time,” he said. “I don’t run my complaints by his staff ahead of time.”Still, it’s undeniable that Suhr “has the ear of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr on a number of policy issues,” as former telecommunications association executive Ted Hearn wrote last week, noting that he had endorsed the $34.5bn merger between Charter Communications and Cox Communications.Suhr said he has only met Carr once – though he did not disclose that his one meeting had occurred just hours before meeting with the Guardian for an interview. Carr posted a photo of the two of them on X, writing that Suhr is “doing fantastic work advancing the public interest in media policy”. (Carr did not respond to a text message seeking further comment about Suhr.)Asked about it later, Suhr explained the visit as just a “get-to-know-you” session – they didn’t talk about pending cases, which means there won’t be an official notice of their meeting – just a photo that Carr posted on X.In late September 2024, Suhr filed a complaint against ABC over its handling of the presidential debate it hosted between Trump and Harris. There was also a complaint against NBC over a pre-election appearance by Harris on Saturday Night Live,which Suhr argued was a violation of the equal time rule.Both complaints were closed at the end of Biden’s term by then-FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel and then reopened by Carr – though the chair chose not to bring back a petition to deny a local Fox station a license because of the Fox News Channel’s coverage of the 2020 election.“The dismissals by the FCC were so obviously correct under established precedent that I became a little curious about who would be dumb enough to file these things,” said Robert Corn-Revere, a first amendment litigator for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, when asked how he first became aware of Suhr. “There is no reason whatsoever for these proceedings to still be open and there was never a basis for them to be open in the first place.” (“[Corn-Revere] is entitled to his opinion,” Suhr responded. “I think our results speak for themselves.”)When ABC indefinitely suspended late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel’s show on 17 September Suhr was all over that as well. Earlier that day, he had filed a complaint to the FCC seeking consequences for ABC unless Kimmel’s show was taken off the air. That followed another complaint about two weeks earlier accusing Kimmel of using his show to benefit Democrats.Critics wonder whether Carr is keeping the complaints open to serve as a potential pressure point for networks – like NBC owner Comcast – that might need the FCC’s blessing for future transactions.Despite their issues with Suhr’s filings, which often allege violations of the FCC’s poorly defined “news distortion” standard, both Sohn and Corn-Revere acknowledged that there is nothing unusual about an outside organization filing motions that are aligned with an FCC chair’s priorities. But, Corn-Revere said, “I’ve just never seen it to be this sort of open and obvious as is going on now.”While he’s relatively new to taking on the media, Suhr is no stranger to politics. After graduating with a law degree in 2008, Suhr spent several years managing the Federalist Society’s law school chapters before joining the administration of Scott Walker, the Republican former Wisconsin governor . He then became a public interest lawyer, working for an organization called the Liberty Justice Center before forming the Center for American Rights with his partner Patrick Hughes. It was Hughes, who leads CAR’s board, who first suggested that Suhr should look into ways to combat what he saw as mainstream media misinformation after watching the ABC News-hosted presidential debate in September.“It was an unfair debate – the moderators were clearly in favor of the Democrats – and it made me think: ‘How can this be?’” Hughes recalled. “And so I said to Daniel: ‘We’ve got to do something about this. What are the standards under which the FCC regulates this?’ Because it can’t be right.”Hughes said he’s been pleased with the impact that Suhr has been able to have. “He’s brilliant,” he said. “He’s a terrific person and a fabulous lawyer and he’s doing a great job.”Sohn agreed that Suhr has “obviously been very successful” in his efforts.Suhr’s complaint against CBS is still open, even though the relief sought – forcing the network to release the 60 Minutes transcript – was already granted months ago. When asked recently why the FCC has not acted on complaints, Carr said they are still being investigated.Either way, Suhr is feeling better about CBS News these days, particularly after the selection of Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief and the appointment of a prominent Washington conservative, Kenneth R Weinstein, as ombudsman.“We appreciate the change that is happening. We applaud it. We’re going to continue to be vigilant for consumers, but so far I’ve been thrilled,” Suhr said. “We just want journalists to be better journalists.” More

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      in US Politics

      White House press secretary defends Trump’s ‘piggy’ insult

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      The White House issued a full-throated defense of Donald Trump’s reference to a Bloomberg News correspondent as a “piggy” on Thursday, claiming without evidence that the president “calls out fake news when he sees it and gets frustrated with reporters who spread false information”.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt made the remarks during a White House briefing, saying Trump was re-elected because of his bluntness and that members of the media should appreciate his willingness to answer their questions.“He calls out fake news when he sees it and gets frustrated with reporters who spread false information,” Leavitt said. “But he also provides unprecedented access to the press and answers questions on a near-daily basis.”Leavitt did not specify what “fake news” or “false information” Trump was responding to when he called Catherine Lucey, Bloomberg’s White House correspondent, “piggy”.The clash between Trump and Lucey happened on Friday onboard Air Force One. Lucey asked a question about the unfolding Jeffrey Epstein scandal and the possibility of the House voting to release all of the files related to his case, which came to fruition earlier this week.When Lucey started to ask why Trump was behaving the way he was “if there’s nothing incriminating in the files”, Trump pointed at her and said: “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.”The remark received widespread backlash on Monday and Tuesday, with many fellow journalists condemning the incident. CNN anchor Jake Tapper wrote on X that the comment was “disgusting and completely unacceptable”, while former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson called the remark “disgusting and degrading”.While Trump has long held and shared contempt for journalists publicly, he’s been particularly open this week with his vitriol. On Tuesday, Trump called another female reporter, Mary Bruce of ABC News, “a terrible person” in the Oval Office. The reporter had asked Mohammed bin Salman, the visiting Saudi crown prince, about the killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and also why Trump had not released the Epstein files.“Mr President, why wait for Congress to release the Epstein files?’ Bruce asked. “Why not just do it now?”“It’s not the question that I mind. It’s your attitude. I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions. You start off with a man who is highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question,” Trump responded.After this incident, the Society of Professional Journalists issued a statement condemning Trump’s remarks to Lucey and Bruce.“These incidents are not isolated; they are part of an unmistakable pattern of hostility – often directed at women – that undermines the essential role of a free and independent press,” the statement reads.SPJ executive director Caroline Hendrie emphasized that “targeting women reporters with humiliating insults should not be tolerated”.“What we say – and what we refuse to say – signals to the world how much we value human rights and free expression,” Hendrie said. “When US leaders downplay the murder of a journalist or shame reporters for demanding transparency, it reverberates far beyond Washington.” More

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      in US Politics

      Telling a reporter ‘quiet, piggy’ was shocking – even for Trump | Margaret Sullivan

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      Catherine Lucey, who covers the White House for Bloomberg News, was doing what reporters are supposed to do: asking germane questions.Her query to Donald Trump a few days ago during a “gaggle” aboard Air Force One was reasonable as it had to do with the release of the Epstein files, certainly a subject of great public interest. Why had Trump been stonewalling, she asked, “if there’s nothing incriminating in the files”.His response, though, was anything but reasonable.It was demeaning, insulting and misogynistic.He pointed straight at Lucey and told her to stop doing her job.“Quiet. Quiet, piggy,” said the president of the United States.From what I could tell, none of her colleagues in the press corps immediately rose to her defense. Things just moved on – business as usual, in a sense.And yet, if I were making a timeline of Trump’s use of the press as a punching bag, this moment would deserve a place on it. Maybe it was his pointing. Maybe it was his direct command, as if he were in charge of what a reporter is allowed to ask.Maybe – probably – it was the nasty name-calling, which is meant to put a reporter in her place in front of the world. Maybe – probably – it was the lack of protest from other reporters.This, after all, is life in Trump’s America. Consider just the past day or so.Trump celebrated the Saudi crown prince, who, according to a 2021 US intelligence report, approved the killing of a Washington Post journalist, Jamal Khashoggi. (The crown prince has denied involvement in the killing.) The US president gave him a hero’s welcome to the White House.Trump insulted and threatened ABC News and its fine reporter Mary Bruce, who also asked germane questions, about Khashoggi as well as the Epstein files. “I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions,” he said. He called ABC a “crappy company” and said its license “should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and it’s so wrong”.We’re supposed to be used to this by now.Clearly, the president’s fervid supporters must approve of this sort of thing; they seem to see it as a way the president is using his power and position to diminish the “elite”, who he has taught them to despise.But getting used to it is dangerous. We all get worn down. “What can you do?” shrug even the caring among us.But, for me, “quiet, piggy” somehow breaks through. It should be a bridge too far, not business as usual.Wouldn’t it have been something to see the entire press corps shout back at Trump, in defense of their colleague? Wouldn’t it have been something to see them walk away from the gaggle?Why didn’t they?“Because access beats out solidarity, every day of the week,” Bill Grueskin, a former Miami Herald and Wall Street Journal editor who is a professor at Columbia Journalism School, posted on Bluesky. If any members of the press corps had somehow managed to push back and defend their colleague, they undoubtedly would have been punished by exclusion from these press briefings.So, yes, the access problem.And I’m sorry to say, they also don’t push back because they’re so used to it. After all, it’s nothing new. It’s just an especially egregious example of what’s been going on for years.I’ve been watching these moves of Trump’s for a long time. I was the Washington Post’s media columnist during the entire first Trump term, so I got an up-close look at how he constantly disparaged the press and its representatives – especially women, and even more especially, women of color.He often clashed, for example, with Yamiche Alcindor, who then covered the White House for the PBS NewsHour, condemning her supposedly “nasty” questions. This year, he called Alcindor, who now works for NBC, “second rate” and demanded that she, too, “be quiet”. He publicly called April Ryan, a longtime White House reporter, “a loser”.Nothing changes – it only worsens – because Trump gets away with it. His stalwart supporters don’t seem to care. The members of the press corps may write a sternly worded letter (or not), but they normalize it, too, by their inaction.Will this “quiet, piggy” moment make a difference? Only for those who care about decency in public officials and in American society.Maybe that’s an old-fashioned notion. And I’m not sure there are enough of us who remember that it matters.

      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      in US Politics

      Is Trump’s remarkable run of fealty coming to an end?

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      “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody,” Donald Trump claimed in 2016, “and I wouldn’t lose any voters.” Coming two weeks before the Iowa caucus, it was an unusual message from a politician, but the last nine years have served to underscore the point.His “Make America great again” base, and the bulk of the Republican party, stood with him through (deep breath): two impeachments, children in cages, “very fine people on both sides”, 34 felony convictions, an insurrection, “shithole countries”, attempting to overturn an election, hush money payments to an adult film actor, “they’re rapists”, a brutal immigration crackdown, Four Seasons Total Landscaping, “grab ‘em by the pussy”, billions of dollars made by the Trump family, cosying up to dictators, “don’t look!”, mass pardons for his allies and friends, an unfinished wall, “liberation day”, presenting himself as a king, forcing Donald Trump Jr into the public consciousness, and more.Trump has enjoyed a remarkable run of fealty, both from his rank and file supporters and from an obsequious GOP. But nothing lasts forever. To paraphrase Batman, you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself lose party support over your handling of documents related to your former friend, a convicted paedophile.Yes, it is the Jeffrey Epstein saga that has led to the biggest fissure yet between Trump and his base. Trump wanted House Republicans to vote against releasing the Epstein files this week, but as many as 100 of them were prepared to defy the president, the biggest act of disobedience Trump has faced in his second term . That forced the president into an embarrassing U-turn: after telling Republicans to vote no on releasing the files, Trump abruptly ordered them all to vote yes.There have been signs elsewhere that Trump’s iron grip over his party might be failing. Trump was desperate for Republicans in Indiana to redraw their voting map so the GOP could pick up another House seat next year, but enough Republican lawmakers resisted that the old maps remain in place.
      Trump has responded to the insubordination in the ways he knows best: pettiness and cruelty.
      He wanted Republicans in the Senate to abolish the filibuster. That didn’t happen either, while there was uproar from rightwing figures last week over a proposal to introduce 50-year mortgages.Trump has responded to the insubordination in the ways he knows best: pettiness and cruelty.Thomas Massie, a Republican congressman from Kentucky who has defied Trump on several issues, was one of the first to feel the president’s ire. Trump, 79, responded to news that Massie had recently married by claiming that “[Massie’s] wife will soon find out that she’s stuck with a LOSER!”.Rod Bray, a Republican in the Indiana state senate, was dismissed as “weak and pathetic” in a Truth Social post, while Trump also bared his claws at Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican congresswoman who broke with him over Epstein. Greene was subjected to a lengthy and confusing analogy about how, actually, her name should be Marjorie Taylor Brown, because “Green turns to Brown where there is ROT involved!”But as Trump has flailed around looking for someone to shout at, it’s the media, his familiar old foe, which has drawn the sharpest attacks .skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionView image in fullscreenTrump shrugged off the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi during Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the White House, telling a journalist who asked about it: “You don’t have to embarrass our guest.”“Quiet piggy,” he told a female reporter on Friday, after she asked him why, if there was nothing in the Epstein files, Trump didn’t want them released. On Tuesday, after an ABC reporter asked why he won’t release the files immediately, Trump called her a “terrible person and a terrible reporter”.The president added: “People are wise to your hoax and ABC is – uh, your company, your crappy company, is one of the perpetrators. And I’ll tell you something, I’ll tell you something, I think the license should be taken away from ABC. Because your news is so fake, and it’s so wrong, and we have a great commissioner, chairman who should look at that.”In the midst of the childlike insults, this one had some real malice. Trump was never likely to shoot someone in middle of Fifth Avenue, but he has waged a war on the media: pressing CBS News and Disney into coughing up $16m through lawsuits, threatening legal action against CNN, and lobbying for late-night hosts to be kicked off air.At a time when Republicans appear less likely than ever before to submit to Trump’s demands, it’s corporate media bosses who are seeming subservient. Plenty of reporters have, so far, stood up to the president. But with Trump increasingly angry and vengeful, will an independent press be able to stand firm? We’ll see. More

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      The infidelity saga of RFK Jr, Nuzzi and her ex is unspooling: ‘It’s like they’ve opened all their trench coats’

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      This week, Olivia Nuzzi – the US star political reporter known for her cozy access to top Republican figures – dropped an excerpt of her memoir, American Canto. In it, she detailed what she describes as an emotional affair with Robert F Kennedy Jr, who she calls “the politician”.Not to be outdone, Nuzzi’s ex-fiance and former Politico correspondent Ryan Lizza self-published an essay dishing on the day he found out Nuzzi was cheating on him, he claims – not with RFK Jr, as one might have expected, but with another former presidential candidate, Mark Sanford.The mudslinging between two of the more polarizing personalities in a profession filled with egos delighted a media class that revels in navel-gazing, schadenfreude and generally messy behavior. Over the course of four days it had a lot of material to work with.First came a glamorous profile of Nuzzi in the New York Times Style section on Friday, in which she mugged for the camera while driving a convertible down the Pacific Coast Highway, and was described by the writer Jacob Bernstein as “a Lana Del Rey song come to life” and the “modern iteration of a Hitchcock blonde”. The profile provided some details of her “digital affair” with RFK, according to Nuzzi: how the now US health secretary told her he would take a bullet for her, how they never slept together, how she advised him on campaign issues (most notably the dead bear carcass story).Then, on Monday, Nuzzi’s memoir excerpts were published in Vanity Fair, the glossy that appointed her west coast editor in September. She wrote about feeling anxious about Kennedy’s reported brain worm, and said the scion soothed her after a doctor who saw his brain scans told him he was fine: “Baby, don’t worry.” She mused: “I did not have to worry about the worm that was not a worm in his brain.”The latest entry into this unfurling drama came when Lizza published a “Part 1” of his side of the story on Monday night, using the metaphor of invasive bamboo growing behind the couple’s townhouse in Georgetown to describe Nuzzi’s secrecy in concealing an alleged affair with Sanford. Sanford, a former South Carolina governor and US representative who had weathered his own cheating scandal years prior, was profiled by Nuzzi for New York magazine during his short-lived 2020 election challenge to Trump. According to Lizza, Nuzzi became “infatuated” with the candidate after interviewing him.Lizza placed this piece of information as a cliffhanger; presumably we must tune into an impending “Part 2” to read Lizza’s recounting of Nuzzi’s affair with RFK Jr.Kennedy is married to actor Cheryl Hines, who has her own memoir out this month. He has denied Nuzzi’s claims of a sexual or romantic relationship, saying they only met once for an interview. He has not commented on the memoir excerpts. Nuzzi, Lizza, Kennedy and Sanford did not respond to requests for comment.All of this makes for grade-A gossip. But while Nuzzi and Lizza are not household names outside the Beltway and New York media circles, their story has wider ramifications. Trust in the US press is at an all-time low; a recent Gallup poll found that just 28% of respondents expressed a “great deal” or “fair amount” of trust in newspapers, television and radio to report the news fairly and accurately. (That’s down from 31% in 2024 and 40% five years ago.)“Journalism has a trust problem, and the fact that all this dirty laundry is getting aired is not going to help that,” said Patrick R Johnson, an assistant professor of journalism at Marquette University. “Because two people with significant followings are behaving in this way, other people, everyday individuals, are going to make assumptions that more journalists are behaving this way, even though they aren’t. And that’s news literacy 101: people are making assumptions based on what they can see, whether or not that is what is happening.”The image of a female journalist sleeping with her source titillates Hollywood (see: House of Cards or Clint Eastwood’s Richard Jewell, which portrayed a real-life but since deceased journalist bedding an FBI agent for tips, much to the anger of the journalist’s family and colleagues), the trope is mostly the stuff of fiction. It is also a major ethical violation, for obvious reasons – it creates a conflict of interest and a too-close relationship between reporter and source. As Moira Donegan wrote for the Guardian last year, revelations like the one about Nuzzi and RFK Jr only make it “harder” for the reporter’s peers to do their jobs and “cast all female professionals under the suspicion of corruptibility and unseriousness”. (The trope apparently once bothered Nuzzi herself; in 2015, she tweeted: “Why does Hollywood think female reporters sleep with sources?”)Nuzzi, who is 32, burst on to the New York Twitterati scene as an intern in Anthony Weiner’s 2013 mayoral campaign and published an account of her experience in the New York Daily News. She parlayed this into a staff position at the Daily Beast while she was still a Fordham University undergraduate.Nuzzi covered Trump’s political rise and went on to serve as New York magazine’s first Washington DC correspondent, filing gossipy profiles of people like Donald Trump, Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen that often co-starred herself. Ahead of the 2024 election, she wrote about Joe Biden’s cognitive state, and profiled RFK Jr when he was but a long-shot independent candidate.Nuzzi left New York magazine when their entanglement, which violated the publication’s standards around conflicts of interest and disclosures, was revealed shortly before the election. She wrote in a statement that the relationship “should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict”, and apologized to her colleagues. She and Lizza broke up.Lizza, who is 51, has his own baggage: in 2017, he was fired from the New Yorker after a sexual misconduct allegation emerged in the early days of the #MeToo movement. He denied the claims and went on to write for Esquire and Politico. The couple were supposed to publish a book on the 2020 election together that never materialized.In the wake of their breakup, Nuzzi filed for a protective order against Lizza, claiming blackmail and harassment. Lizza denied her allegations, and Nuzzi withdrew her request for protection last November.In his essay, Lizza painted himself as a casualty of a mercurial ex’s “betrayal”. “It’s almost as if he’s hurt that he was the victim of her decisions” regarding RFK Jr and Sanford, said Johnson, the journalism professor. “It’s as if he’s on this weird tour to fix his image from before.”Mark Feldstein spent 20 years as an on-air investigative correspondent at CNN, ABC News and other local affiliates. He is now the chair of broadcast journalism at the University of Maryland. He described the Nuzzi-Lizza story as “self-immolation on both their parts”.“This takes journalism self-branding to a crazy and extreme extent,” Feldstein said. “It certainly fuels the disdain that so many Americans have for journalists not being objective, not being neutral. This confirms the stereotype of journalists as self-promoting vultures wallowing in the gutter.”Feldstein recalled Geraldo Rivera’s 1991 memoir, Exposing Myself, which chronicled the journalist’s sexual exploits and was written off as unprofessional. “It was met with universal horror at the time among journalists, because it was such an outlandish, self-promoting, degrading publicity stunt,” Feldstein said.However, in the era of the attention economy, Nuzzi and Lizza’s tell-alls are all but expected. As Feldstein puts it: “It’s like they’ve opened their trench coats and exposed to all of us what they’re hiding underneath. It’s not a pretty sight.” More

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      Ultra-rich media owners are tightening their grip on democracy. It’s time to wrest our power back

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      The richest man on earth owns X.The family of the second-richest man owns Paramount, which owns CBS, and could soon own Warner Bros, which owns CNN.The third-richest man owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.The fourth-richest man owns the Washington Post and Amazon MGM Studios.Another billionaire owns Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.Why are the ultra-rich buying up so much of the media? Vanity may play a part, but there’s a more pragmatic – some might say sinister – reason.If you’re a multibillionaire, you might view democracy as a potential threat to your net worth. Control over a significant share of the dwindling number of media outlets would enable you to effectively hedge against democracy by suppressing criticism of you and other plutocrats, and discouraging any attempt to – for example – tax away your wealth.You also have Donald Trump to contend with. In his second term of office, Trump has brazenly and illegally used the power of the presidency to punish his enemies and reward those who lavish him with praise and profits.So perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising that the editorial board of the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post defended the razing of the East Wing of the White House to build Trump his giant ballroom – without disclosing that Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon is a major corporate contributor to the ballroom’s funding. The Post’s editorial board also applauded Trump’s defense department’s decision to obtain a new generation of smaller nuclear reactors, but failed to mention Amazon’s stake in X-energy, a company that’s developing small nuclear reactors. And it criticized Washington DC’s refusal to accept self-driving cars without disclosing that Amazon’s self-driving car company was trying to get into the Washington DC market.These breaches are inexcusable.It’s much the same with the family of Larry Ellison, founder of the software firm Oracle and the second-richest person in the world. Ellison is a longtime Trump donor who also, according to court records, participated in a phone call to discuss how his 2020 election defeat could be contested.In June 2025, Ellison and Oracle were co-sponsors of Trump’s military parade in Washington. At the time, Larry and his son David, founder of Skydance Media, were waiting for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to approve their $8bn merger with Paramount Global, owner of CBS News.In the run-up to the sale, some top brass at CBS News and its flagship 60 Minutes resigned, citing concerns over the network’s ability to maintain its editorial independence, and revealing pressure by Paramount to tamp down stories critical of Trump. No matter. Too much money was at stake.In July, Paramount paid $16m to settle Trump’s frivolous lawsuit against CBS and canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, much to Trump’s delight. Three weeks after the settlement was announced, Trump loyalist Brendan Carr, chair of the FCC, approved the Ellisons’ deal, making David chief executive of the new media giant Paramount Skydance and giving him control of CBS News.In October, David made the anti-“woke” opinion journalist Bari Weiss the CBS News editor-in-chief, despite her lack of experience in either broadcasting or news. Earlier this month, it was revealed that CBS News heavily edited Trump’s latest 60 Minutes interview, cutting his boast that the network “paid me a lotta money”.I’m old enough to remember when CBS News would never have surrendered to a demagogic president. But that was when CBS News – the home of Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite – was independent of the rest of CBS, and when the top management of CBS had independent responsibilities to the American public.It is impossible to know the full extent to which criticism of Trump and his administration has been chilled by the media-owning billionaires, or what fawning coverage has been elicited.But what we do know is that billionaire media owners like Musk, Bezos, Ellison and Murdoch are businessmen first and foremost. Their highest goal is not to inform the public but to make money. They know Trump can wreak havoc on their businesses by imposing unfriendly FCC rulings, enforcing labor laws against them or denying them lucrative government contracts.And in an era when wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals who have bought up key media, with a thin-skinned president who is willing and able to violate laws and norms to punish or reward, there is a growing danger that the public will not be getting the truth it needs to function in this democracy.What to do about this?At the least, media outlets should inform their readers about any and all potential conflicts of interest, and media watchdogs and professional associations should ensure they do.A second suggestion (if and when the US has a saner government) is that anti-monopoly authorities not approve the purchase of a major media outlet by someone with extensive businesses that could pose conflicts of interest.Acquisition of a media company should be treated differently than the acquisition of, say, a company developing self-driving cars or one developing small nuclear reactors, because of the media’s central role in our democracy.A third suggestion is to read and support media such as the Guardian, which is not beholden to a wealthy owner or powerful advertiser and does not compromise its integrity to curry favor with the powerful.To the contrary, the Guardian aims to do what every great source of news and views should be doing, especially in these dark times: illuminate, enlighten and elucidate. This is why I avidly read each day’s edition and why I write a column for it.As the Washington Post’s slogan still says, democracy dies in darkness. Today, darkness is closing in because a demagogue sits in the Oval Office and so much of the US’s wealth and media ownership is concentrated in the hands of a few people easily manipulated by that demagogue.We must fight to get our democracy back. Supporting the Guardian is one good place to begin.You can support the Guardian’s year-end appeal here. All gifts are gratefully received, but a recurring contribution – even a small monthly amount – is most impactful, helping sustain our work throughout the year ahead. It takes just 37 seconds to give. Thank you. More