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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

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      With his threat of a $1bn lawsuit against BBC, Trump’s assault on the media goes global

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      Donald Trump has, for years, used legal threats and lawsuits to pressure news companies who put out coverage he does not like. After his return to power, a string of US broadcasters and tech firms have paid tens of millions of dollars to settle such cases.The president has now gone global with this campaign, crossing the pond to threaten the BBC with a $1bn lawsuit over an episode of the Panorama documentary program that aired more than a year ago.A lawyer representing Trump accused the BBC of “defamatory, disparaging, and inflammatory statements” in stitching together Trump’s comments from his January 6 speech in Washington DC to make it sound like he was encouraging his supporters to “fight like hell” at the US Capitol, hours before a deadly insurrection unfolded.Already, two top BBC executives have resigned over the controversy. A lawyer for Trump said the BBC’s broadcast has caused Trump “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” and suggested it violated Florida law – even though BBC iPlayer, the main streaming platform that carries Panorama, and BBC One, the main TV channel that broadcasts it, are not available in the US.The BBC has said it will review the correspondence from Trump’s legal team “and respond directly in due course”.The saga is only the latest chapter in a campaign meant to keep media institutions that cover Trump on their toes. Often, legal letters sent to media companies on his behalf have not actually led to lawsuits – though many journalists say they have contributed to a chilling effect on coverage.But Trump has also followed through on several lawsuits, and since his re-election one year ago, a series of media and tech companies have chosen to take the easy way out by agreeing to significant settlements. Several of those companies have business before his administration.In July, Paramount, parent company of CBS News, chose to settle a case that Trump had filed in the state of Texas arguing that the company had violated consumer protection laws by misleadingly editing a 60 Minutes interview of then vice-president Kamala Harris. Many legal experts viewed the case as easily winnable for Paramount, considering the unrelated statute he sued under – and that Trump could not credibly claim to have been harmed by the segment since he defeated Harris in the election.But company leadership viewed the lawsuit as an unnecessary distraction, particularly as it sought his government’s approval of a merger with Skydance Media. Paramount ultimately paid $16m.Trump also won a settlement last year from ABC, owned by Disney, which he had sued over comments made by anchor George Stephanopoulos. ABC agreed to pay $15m.When combining Trump’s settlements with ABC, CBS and cases against both Facebook parent company Meta and YouTube, which is owned by Google, he has racked up over $80m in agreements. Most of this money is slated to go toward the building of Trump’s presidential library, rather than to him personally.Now the BBC in his sights. Unlike CBS, owned by Paramount Skydance, and ABC, owned by Disney, the BBC is not part of a complicated corporate empire: it is independent, although its unique structure as a publicly funded organization invites intense scrutiny.Because of the timing of the Panorama broadcast, one week before the 5 November 2024 presidential election, a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team accused the BBC of so-called “election interference”, a similar charge to the CBS case. “President Trump will continue to hold accountable those who traffic in lies, deception, and fake news,” they told the Guardian.The legal letter cites the actual malice standard necessary to win defamation cases in the US. To meet that bar, Trump’s team would have to prove that someone with authority at the BBC knew that the edited package falsely portrayed Trump to have encouraged violence, and chose not to act on that knowledge.David A Logan, professor emeritus at the Roger Williams School of Law in Rhode Island, said Trump’s allegations against the BBC closely “track” those he made against CBS – though in that case, CBS had merely used two different parts of the same answer in separate broadcasts, rather than pulling together comments from opposite ends of the Harris interview.“I am reluctant to say which is worse journalism,” Logan said, but he noted that the resignations of BBC director general Tim Davie and chief executive of BBC News Deborah Turness “signals that the BBC thinks it’s plenty bad behavior”.Mark Stephens, an international media lawyer at the firm Howard Kennedy, said Trump’s team likely targeted the US to potentially file the case because the statute of limitations – one year from the date of the broadcast, which was 28 October 2024 – has passed in the UK.Still, he said that Trump’s team would face “jurisdictional hurdles” if it filed the lawsuit. Because the program was not easily viewable in Florida, Stephens said it could be challenging to prove that someone in the state had seen it. “The question I would ask myself early on is: How can someone in Florida think the worst of Donald Trump if they haven’t seen the publication?” (The legal letter noted the segment in question has been distributed “through various digital mediums”.)If Trump chooses to sue, Stephens said the case would bring renewed attention to Trump’s comments, and any role he might have played in fomenting the violence of January 6. (Trump claims he did no such thing.)“If he sues, he opens a Pandora’s box, and in that Pandora’s box is every damning quote he’s ever uttered about Jan 6,” said Stephens. “So this isn’t the hill to die on, in my view. It’s a legal cliff edge, and if he jumps, there’s a high chance he’ll fall.” More

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      CNN’s All Access election night ‘watch party’ might not be the network’s future

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      CNN wanted to try something new on election night, and you can’t blame them.Cable news networks – well, besides Fox News – are struggling to retain viewers, even on a night where voters were getting their first real say on Donald Trump’s second presidency.More and more customers are cancelling their cable packages in favor of cheaper streaming services or free content on social media. So, the network recently launched a new streaming product of its own called CNN All Access – priced at $6.99 a month – that offers online access to a full menu of the network’s news and non-news content, along with a stream of CNN’s television product, something a previous incarnation lacked.On Tuesday, CNN All Access subscribers got exclusive access to an election night broadcast – the CNN Election Livecast – that the network’s data guy and host Harry Enten likened to a “watch party”. Previewing the event on CNN’s main channel, Enten said it would be “kind of like hanging out with your best friends who know the most about politics”.There’s no question that CNN’s cast on Tuesday night featured political experts, including commentators Ben Shapiro (the Daily Wire), Charlamagne tha God (the Breakfast Club), Ana Kasparian (the Young Turks) and the gen-Z conservative activist Isabel Brown, who also hosts a show for the Daily Wire. But the program often felt far from what was actually happening at the polls.Throughout the two-hour program, there were few updates on the results of the election. Those watching the streaming show rather than the main CNN broadcast, which featured the network’s standard election-night fare – anchors Jake Tapper and John King pointing to maps and getting live reports from campaign celebrations – were late to find out that the network had projected Zohran Mamdani as the winner of the New York City mayoral election. (Enten had to interrupt a discussion between Shapiro and Kasparian about the white nationalist Nick Fuentes to actually share the update.)CNN designed a set for the event that featured comfy couches, arcade games, a pop-a-shot basketball game and a foosball table. The idea was that the cast would actually have some fun, playing games while chatting politics and taking in the results. But everyone stayed glued to their seats – until the very end of the broadcast, when Enten made Shapiro play the basketball game. Neither had much success. “We have this lovely room here, and we haven’t actually utilized it at all,” Enten said. A large coffee table in the center of the room featured bowls of snacks that never seemed to get touched.Kara Swisher, who was beamed into the room for a few minutes, perhaps too honestly, described it as “the weirdest living room I’ve ever seen”.The panel also seemed to lack true ideological diversity, with the cast seeming to largely agree that Mamdani would struggle to actually govern – and all affirming that they viewed Joe Biden’s administration as a failure.About an hour in, Charlamagne tha God left the panel because, Enten said, he needed to get up early the next morning for his day job. He was replaced by Tezlyn Figaro, who has appeared on the Breakfast Club.As the event wound down, Enten struggled to actually end it because the panel was in the middle of a heated discussion about whether Mamdani was a “jihadist”.“That, I think, is a lovely way to end this evening,” Enten said, finding a stopping point. “I think it’s been an amazingly fun time – a different experience.”At that, in a nod to what matters most at CNN right now, Enten said he was off to spend a few hours analyzing election results on the television channel. More

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      From CBS to TikTok, US media are falling to Trump’s allies. This is how democracy crumbles | Owen Jones

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      Democracy may be dying in the US. Whether the patient receives emergency treatment in time will determine whether the condition becomes terminal. Before Donald Trump’s return to the presidency, I warned of “Orbánisation” – in reference to Hungary’s authoritarian leader Viktor Orbán. There, democracy was not extinguished by firing squads or the mass imprisonment of dissidents, but by slow attrition. The electoral system was warped, civil society was targeted and pro-Orbán moguls quietly absorbed the media.Nine months on, and Orbánisation is in full bloom across the Atlantic. Billionaire Larry Ellison, the Oracle co-founder, and his filmmaker son, David, have become blunt instruments in this process. Trump boasts they are “friends of mine – they’re big supporters of mine”. Larry Ellison, second only to Elon Musk as the world’s richest man, has poured tens of millions into Republican coffers. Shortly after the 2020 election, he joined a call that discussed challenging the legitimacy of the vote. His son, David, has a history of backing Democrats – but at one time, so did Trump, his daughter Ivanka and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.In August, David Ellison’s Skydance Media acquired Paramount Global with financial support from his father, leaving him as chair and CEO of the new entity. Beyond a vast slice of Hollywood, this acquisition brought control of CBS News – one of the US’s “big three” networks. During the last election, Trump demanded CBS lose its broadcasting licence over alleged political bias and even sued the network over what he called a flattering edit of Kamala Harris’s 60 Minutes interview. His mood has since improved. Ellison is “going to do the right thing” with the network, Trump crowed when its ownership shifted. His optimism was swiftly vindicated: a Trump appointee was installed as CBS’s ombudsman to monitor “bias”, and Bari Weiss – a former Democrat turned anti-woke crusader – was made editor-in-chief.Now, Trump officials are briefing that they are also in favour of Paramount Skydance buying Warner Bros Discovery, the parent company of HBO and CNN. “Who owns Warner Bros Discovery (WBD) is very important to the administration,” a senior Trump official told the conservative New York Post. The pro-Trump newspaper states that rival bidders will face “regulatory hurdles”, with WBD’s CEO forced to consider the Trump administration’s willingness to crack down on what it sees as rampant leftwing bias across the mainstream media.Larry Ellison, meanwhile, also leads a group of investors set to take over TikTok’s US operations, with other partners reportedly including Rupert Murdoch and Abu Dhabi’s government-owned investment company. Although much of Trump’s own criticism of TikTok has focused on China, key Maga figures such as Josh Hawley and Marco Rubio have called for the app to be banned over “anti-Israel” bias, and for shifting younger Americans’ sympathies towards Palestinians. Ellison is a fervent supporter of Israel, and has previously donated millions to its military through the non-profit Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. They will be pleased to have him in charge.In 2015, Safra Catz, Oracle’s Israeli-American executive chair, and former CEO, reportedly told former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak in an email that: “We believe that we have to embed the love and respect for Israel in the American culture.” Oracle will have oversight of the TikTok algorithm.But this goes much further than the Ellisons’ acquisitions. Trump threatened Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he crossed him. The social media mogul has little to worry about now, having done his best to ingratiate himself with the administration. He abandoned third-party factchecking in the US, dropped restrictions on topics such as immigration and gender, and appointed Trump supporters as head of global affairs and to the executive board. At the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, columnist Karen Attiah says she was fired for “speaking out against political violence, racial double standards, and America’s apathy toward guns” after Charlie Kirk’s assassination.Liberal comedian Jimmy Kimmel had his ABC show suspended after the pro-Trump chair of the Federal Communications Commission demanded action. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting – long deemed hostile by Trump – has been defunded and shut down. The administration took control over which media organisations have access to the White House, ejecting the Associated Press. US media outlets were stripped of their Pentagon credentials after refusing to only report officially authorised information issued by the Department of Defense. Trump’s lawsuits against media organisations have further cowed them.It goes far beyond media control. Witness Trump deploying the national guard to Democratic strongholds and centralising control over elections. Republicans have launched new gerrymandering offensives, while demanding the denaturalisation and deportation of socialist New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, as Trump threatens to defund the city if he wins. In Hungary, too, Orbán slashed funding for opposition mayoralties. Opponents are threatened with arrest: the arch warmonger John Bolton may be politically loathsome, but the charges filed against him are the harbinger of worse to come. Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon claims there is a plan to circumvent the constitution to allow his former boss to take a third term. We could go on.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUS democracy has always been heavily flawed. It is so rigged in favour of wealthy elites that a detailed academic study back in 2014 found that the political system is rigged in favour of what the economic elites want. Yet because, unlike Hungary, the US has no history of dictatorship, with a system of supposed checks and balances, some felt it could never succumb to tyranny. Such complacency has collided with brutal reality. In just nine months, the US has been dragged towards an authoritarian abyss. A warning: Trump has 39 months left in office.

      Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist More

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      ICE detains British journalist after criticism of Israel on US tour

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      British journalist Sami Hamdi was reportedly detained on Sunday morning by federal immigration authorities at San Francisco international airport, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) says that action is apparent retaliation for the Muslim political commentator’s criticism of Israel while touring the US.A statement from Cair said it was “a blatant affront to free speech” to detain Hamdi for criticizing Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza while he engaged on a speaking tour in the US. A Trump administration official added in a separate statement that Hamdi is facing deportation.“Our attorneys and partners are working to address this injustice,” Cair’s statement said. The statement also called on US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “to immediately account for and release Mr Hamdi”, saying his only “‘crime’ is criticizing a foreign government” that Cair accused of having “committed genocide”.The press secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, Tricia McLaughlin, wrote of Hamdi in a social media post: “This individual’s visa was revoked, and he is in ICE custody pending removal”.McLaughlin’s post also said: “Those who support terrorism and undermine American national security will not be allowed to work or visit this country.”During his tour, Hamdi spoke on Saturday at the annual gala for Cair’s chapter in Sacramento. He was expected to speak on Sunday at the gala for the Florida chapter of Cair.McLaughlin’s post about Hamdi’s detention was shared by Trump administration ally Laura Loomer, who took credit for his being taken into custody.Loomer, who has called herself a “white advocate” and a “proud Islamophobe”, has often peddled conspiracy theories such as endorsing claims that the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 were an “inside job”.In 2018, she infamously chained herself to Twitter’s headquarters in New York City in protest of her account being banned. Billionaire businessman Elon Musk reinstated her account after he bought the social media platform in 2022.“As a direct result of … my relentless pressure on the [state department] and Department of Homeland Security, US officials have now moved to take action against Hamdi’s visa status, and his continued presence in this country,” Loomer posted on social media.Hamdi is the latest of numerous immigrants who have been arrested and deported by ICE over pro-Palestinian views. Earlier in October, journalist Mario Guevara was deported to El Salvador after having been detailed while live streaming the massive, anti-Trump No Kings protest in June.On 30 September, a federal judge appointed during Ronald Reagan’s presidency ruled the administration’s policy to detain and deport foreign scholars over pro-Palestinian views violates the US constitution and was designed to “intentionally” chill free speech rights.The ruling is bound to be appealed, possibly all the way to the US supreme court, which is dominated by a conservative supermajority made possible by three Trump appointments. The state department, meanwhile, has said it will continue revoking visas under the policy. More

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      Pentagon names new press corps from far-right outlets after reporter walkout

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      After the recent departure of Pentagon reporters due to their refusal to agree to a new set of restrictive policies, the defense department has announced a “next generation of the Pentagon press corps” featuring 60 journalists from far-right outlets, many of which have promoted conspiracy theories.Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell posted the news on X but did not provide any names.The Washington Post, however, obtained a draft of the announcement, which stated that the new reporters, who agreed to the department’s new policies, were from outlets such as Lindell TV, started by Trump ally Mike Lindell; the Gateway Pundit; the Post Millennial; Human Events; and the National Pulse.The list also includes Turning Point USA’s media brand Frontlines, influencer Tim Pool’s Timcast and a Substack-based newsletter called Washington Reporter, the Post reported.The Pentagon did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for the list of journalists.Parnell described the group as a “broad spectrum of new media outlets and independent journalists”.“New media outlets and independent journalists have created the formula to circumvent the lies of the mainstream media and get real news directly to the American people,” Parnell wrote. “Their reach and impact collectively are far more effective and balanced than the self-righteous media who chose to self-deport from the Pentagon.”The new press corps includes rightwing outlets that have promoted conspiracy theories. For example, the Gateway Pundit spread false information about the 2020 election and then settled a defamation lawsuit with two Georgia election workers it falsely accused of wrongdoing and admitted that there was no fraud in the election.Similarly, Lindell denied the results of the election and was ordered to pay $2.3m to an employee of a voting machine company who sued him for defamation.Pool, a conservative podcast host, was among the influencers who allegedly were associated with a US content creation company that was provided with nearly $10m from Russian state media employees to publish videos with messages in favor of Moscow’s interests and agenda.Pool said they were “deceived and are victims”.The journalists who turned in their press credentials earlier this month did so after the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, introduced a policy that required that they agree not to obtain unauthorized material and restricted access to certain areas unless accompanied by an official.Outlets including the Washington Post, the New York Times and the Atlantic, as well as reporters from rightwing outlets such as Fox News and Newsmax, all refused to sign on to the new rules.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We believe the requirements are unnecessary and onerous and hope that the Pentagon will review the matter further,” Newsmax told Times journalist Erik Wemple.The Guardian also declined to sign the revised Pentagon press pass policy because it placed unacceptable restrictions on activities protected by the first amendment.During a White House press briefing, Pool, a member of the new Pentagon press corps, asked Karoline Leavitt to comment on the mainstream media and “their unprofessional behavior as well as elaborate [on] if there’s any plans to expand access to new companies?”In a segment on Wednesday on the rightwing television network Real America’s Voice, defense department spokesperson Kingsley Wilson thanked the show’s host, Jack Posobiec, for joining the press corps.Wilson misstated the policies that caused journalists to leave the Pentagon. She did not mention that it included a requirement that they not obtain unauthorized material.“They walked out because they refused to sign an agreement that was simple. It was common sense. It said, wear a visible press badge. Don’t go in classified spaces, stay in the correspondence corridor and follow the building’s rules,” Wilson said.“That was their right, but also their loss, because now we get to have incredible journalists like yourself who are going to be here in the Pentagon reporting on what the Department of War is doing every single day,” Wilson said. “It’s really the next generation of journalism at the Pentagon.” More

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      BBC reporters cannot wear Black Lives Matter T-shirts in newsroom, says Tim Davie

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      BBC journalists cannot wear T-shirts in the newsroom supporting the anti-racist movement Black Lives Matter, the corporation’s director general has said.Tim Davie said the BBC stood against racism but it was “not appropriate for a journalist who may be covering that issue to be campaigning in that way.“You cannot have any assumption about where people are politically. You leave it at the door, and your religion is journalism in the BBC. And I tell you: the problem I’ve got is people react quite chemically to that.“So you can’t come into the newsroom with a Black Lives Matter T-shirt on. We stand absolutely firmly against racism in any form.“I find some of the hatred in society at the moment utterly abhorrent, personally, really upsetting, but that is a campaign that has politicised objectives. Therefore, it is not appropriate for a journalist who may be covering that issue to be campaigning in that way.“And, for some people joining the BBC, that is a very difficult thing to accept. And it has not been an easy thing to get done this, and we wrestle with it every day.”Speaking about diversity and impartiality at the BBC at the Cheltenham literature festival, Davie also drew a parallel with impartiality when reporting on mainstream political campaigning.“I feel very, very strongly that if you walk into the BBC newsroom, you cannot be holding a Kamala Harris mug when you come to the election – no way, that’s not even acceptable,” he said.The BBC director general also said his “number one priority” was “trying to navigate a course where you are impartial” and that required “elements of diversity”, adding that “socioeconomic diversity” was something that “hadn’t been talked about enough”.He added: “It is absolutely a big battle, and I’m getting questions: ‘Why are you giving a voice to Reform?’, ‘Why are you doing this?’ We’re not giving a voice, we’re covering – covering what people are interested in, covering the reality of what people feel.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDavie was also asked whether he felt safe when he had been shouted at and people had come into his personal space.He said: “It’s not for the faint-hearted; these jobs in public life now, I mean, they are really quite demanding. I’m no great Californian hippy, but you have to look after yourself, you really have to.” More

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      Who are the rightwing influencers filling Trump’s head with visions of antifa?

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      Last week’s White House roundtable on antifa was an odd affair, mainly because the supposed experts who briefed Donald Trump on antifascism were rightwing influencers who make a living filming themselves confronting leftwing protesters.Videos of protests in Portland and Chicago produced by these conservative content creators have long shaped the president’s distorted view of reality.Although the influencers all describe themselves as “independent journalists”, they all frame leftwing protesters as nefarious or ridiculous in their videos, and eight of the 11 are current or former employees of Turning Point USA, the conservative advocacy organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk.None presented evidence to support the administration’s claim that antifascists, who disrupt white supremacist rallies or oppose the mass deportation of their neighbors, are “terrorists”. Instead, they shared personal stories of having been victimized by leftwing protesters.“Their job”, the extremism researcher Jared Holt said on his podcast, “is to make these viral clips that they can show on Fox News and scare your grandpa into thinking antifa is on the verge of a mass slaughter, and that Mr Trump is the only man who can put an end to this by sending the military to go crack some skulls”.Here is a guide to the conservative media activists whose work fills the president’s head with visions of antifa.Andy NgoNgo is a video journalist turned pundit with 1.7 million followers on X. View image in fullscreenSince Donald Trump first shouted the word “antifa” at a rally in 2017, a week after he accused antifascists of “violently attacking” white supremacists at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, no one has done more than Andy Ngo to promote the myth that black-clad protesters around the nation are part of a secret terrorist network.Ngo, the son of Vietnamese refugees in Portland, made his name on Twitter by posting video clips, often misleadingly edited or captioned, of street battles that broke out when far-right groups from surrounding counties descended on the liberal city to provoke antifascists.His willingness to selectively edit his reports to blame antifascists for the violence was revealed in 2019, when video recorded by an antifascist mole in a rightwing group Ngo had embedded with, Patriot Prayer, showed that Ngo had witnessed, and chosen not to report, the Christian nationalists planning to instigate violence at a leftwing gathering.A month later, Ngo was attacked by antifascists while filming their efforts to counter a Proud Boys rally in Portland. He was punched, kicked and doused with silly string and a milkshake he later claimed had been laced with quick-drying cement. (That accusation appears to have been a false rumor shared with the police by a rightwing activist who was caught on camera the same day dousing antifascists with grey powder.)That assault instantly made him a sought-after guest on Fox News. Two years later, he published Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy, a best-selling book filled with exaggerated or inaccurate claims about leftwing protesters.Ngo’s use of the term “domestic terrorists” to describe antifa, now amplified in official US government statements, is not just inaccurate, it can be dangerous. In 2022, a Portland resident who followed Ngo on YouTube went to the site of a planned racial justice march Ngo had railed against, screamed that antifascist volunteers protecting the marchers were “terrorists” and opened fire. The rightwing gunman shot four traffic safety volunteers and a protest medic. One woman died at the scene, another succumbed to her injuries later.Katie DaviscourtDaviscourt is a video correspondent for the Post Millennial with 260,000 followers on X.View image in fullscreenKatie Daviscourt, a former Turning Point USA activist, is a correspondent for Post Millennial, a far-right Canadian website where Andy Ngo is an editor. A Portland police sergeant recently described her in an internal report as one of the “counter-protesters” filming protests outside a Portland Immigration and Customs Enforcement office who “constantly return and antagonize the protesters until they are assaulted or pepper sprayed”. A week later, Daviscourt was struck by a protester who tried to block her from filming by swinging a Palestinian flag in her face.The next night, she appeared on Fox News with a black eye to accuse Portland police officers who spent 2020 battling with antifascists of being part of antifa. “The Trump administration needs to start treating antifa like Isis, the terrorists that they are, and put an end to them for good,” she told Jesse Watters.Nick SortorSortor is an influencer who confronts protesters and Democrats for his 1.2 million X followers.View image in fullscreenNick Sortor, a former real estate agent from Kentucky, made his name during the Biden administration by going to the scenes of disasters, in East Palestine, Ohio, and Lahaina, Maui, to scream at officials and push conspiracy theories in interviews with Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon.In February, he claimed that Elizabeth Warren, the 76-year-old Massachusetts senator, has “assaulted” him as she pushed past him to get into her car while he was peppering her with questions based on viral misinformation.Sortor has been involved in multiple physical altercations with protesters in Portland this month, some of which he clearly initiated. Video shot by a Fox News correspondent one night showed Sortor ripping a burning American flag from the hands of an elderly protester he later described as an “Antifa thug”. Later that night, Sortor was arrested after exchanging blows with protesters, who reportedly objected to him filming closeup images of a teenage girl who had just been maced by a federal officer.The charges against Sortor were later dropped by a local prosecutor after his arrest prompted an outcry in the conservative media. Sortor received a sympathetic text from Trump and a phone call from the attorney general, Pam Bondi, who ordered the head of the justice department’s civil rights division, Harmeet Dhillon, to open an investigation of the Portland police bureau over supposed anti-conservative bias. Dhillon was previously Andy Ngo’s lawyer.Julio RosasRosas is a correspondent for Glenn Beck’s Blaze TV with 230,000 followers on X.View image in fullscreenJulio Rosas got his start working for Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA, writing last month that meeting the conservative activist “is THE reason why I have my career in politics today”.The marine reservist spent much of 2020 filming undercover video of racial justice protests, highlighting rare instances of violence in clips that helped Fox News and the Trump White House frame demonstrations that were about 94% entirely peaceful as anarchic.Rosas’s openly partisan approach to covering protests was reflected in his comment to Trump that the “sustained political violence that we’re seeing in this country is not a ‘both sides’ issue”.Rosas did not tell the president that, in previous years, he had filmed two infamous acts of rightwing political violence: Kyle Rittenhouse shooting two people, one fatally, in 2020; and Trump supporters hurling a metal barricade into the doors of the Capitol, striking police officers, and attacking journalists on 6 January 2021.Savanah HernandezHernandez is a contributor to Turning Point USA and a former Infowars host with 700,000 followers on X.View image in fullscreenSavanah Hernandez, a former host for the far-right, conspiracy theory outlet Infowars now creating videos in Portland for Turning Point USA, was celebrated on Fox News in the summer of 2020 for a stunt in which she had herself filmed holding up a sign that read “Police Lives Matter” during a Black Lives Matter protest that followed the murder of George Floyd.At the White House roundtable, she directed her rage at reporters from the White House pool covering the roundtable. “The same media that’s sitting in this room with us, has declared all of us at this table Nazis and fascists, and they’ve been doing this for years,” Hernandez said. “This is why Antifa feels emboldened to attack us.”What Hernandez was apparently not aware of is that, since the Trump administration now selects members of the press pool to be admitted to events with the president, many of the people she was yelling at actually worked for pro-Trump outlets.Cam HigbyHigby is a Turning Point USA media activist with 190,000 followers on X.View image in fullscreenCam Higby is a Turning Point USA activist who got his start creating videos for PragerU, a rightwing media outlet that promotes climate-crisis denialism and soft-pedals the brutal reality of American slavery in educational films now approved for use in K-12 schools in 10 states.In recent weeks, Higby has spent time in Portland, but has also been emulating Turning Point’s murdered founder Charlie Kirk, by setting up tables on college campuses and challenging students to debate him.At the White House roundtable, however, Higby cast himself as a reporter unfairly targeted by antifa. “I’m attacked every time I do my job. When I leave my house to go to work, I’m violently assaulted. I’ve had guns pulled on me. I’ve been bear-sprayed. I’ve been beaten down. I’ve been almost killed,” he said.Nick ShirleyShirley is a YouTube influencer with 880,000 subscribers.View image in fullscreenNick Shirley, 23, started out making prank videos during his high school years in Utah but last year he began to make YouTube videos aimed at boosting Donald Trump.In February 2024, Shirley recorded himself asking migrants if they supported Joe Biden and shared video on X of several saying they did with the caption: “Confirmed: Migrants for Biden 2024”. Three months later, Shirley hired Latino day laborers at a Home Depot parking lot and paid them $20 each to appear in a video holding signs outside the White House with the slogans: “I Love Biden” and “I Need Work Permit for My Family.”Last month, he produced a friendly profile of the English racist organizer Tommy Robinson, and called a protest he attended in Paris an “antifa riot”.Shirley has been in Portland in recent weeks, making a video he titled, “Portland has Fallen… ANTIFA Take Control of City”, and telling Fox News that Oregon’s governor, who refused to give him an interview during a protest march, had “sided with antifa”.Jonathan ChoeChoe is a Turning Point USA correspondent with 180,000 followers on X.View image in fullscreenJonathan Choe, now a Turning Point USA correspondent, was fired from his job as a reporter for the ABC affiliate in Seattle in 2022 for producing what looked like a promotional video for the Proud Boys, set to a song by a white supremacist, in his spare time.In addition to reporting on leftwing protests for rightwing outlets, he covers homelessness in Seattle as a fellow at the Discovery Institute, a Christian conservative thinktank .In May, Choe was filmed striking a protester in the face with a baton and then insisting to police that he was the victim. “He assaulted me,” Choe shouted, in video recorded by Daviscourt.Last week in Portland, Choe filmed a man he identified as “Maga patriot Thomas Allen” punching a protester and knocking them to the ground during a skirmish initiated by Sortor. When Allen was then arrested by the police, Choe suggested it was unjust because “antifa militants” had earlier in the night briefly seized Allen’s red Maga cap.Allen was arraigned last week for misdemeanor assault.James KlugKlug is a Turning Point USA ambassador with 617,000 YouTube subscribers.View image in fullscreenJames Klug is affiliated with Turning Point USA and known for videos in which he argues with and mocks liberals.On inauguration day 2021, Klug offered his followers a behind-the-scenes look at how influencers like Rosas go undercover to capture violence at leftwing protests in the city and then appear on Fox News to put all the blame on antifa.The violence in that case was from a small group of anarchists who smashed windows at the Oregon Democratic party’s headquarters in Portland, as Joe Biden was sworn in as president.Rosas told Laura Ingraham on Fox it was the work of antifa, although Rose City Antifa, the Portland group that helped revive the Nazi-era concept of antifascist organizing, said in a statement this was an anarchist action antifascists played no part in.Brandi KruseKruse is a former local TV reporter from Seattle who has 165,000 followers on X.View image in fullscreenBrandi Kruse, a Republican podcaster who quit her job as a reporter for Seattle’s local Fox affiliate in 2021, recently spent 48 hours in Portland for her podcast, a city she subsequently described as a “shithole”. She told Trump that she was a former critic who now endorsed him.Kruse also claimed the president’s antifascist rhetoric had already had an effect. “I genuinely believe there would be people at these tables who would be dead today, and would have been killed in Portland, had you not called them a terror organization and said we’re going to bring the full weight of the federal government to bear.”Jack PosobiecPosobiec, who has 3.2 million followers, hosts a podcast sponsored by Turning Point USAView image in fullscreenJack Posobiec, a former One America News host who left the fringe cable channel to start a show on the far-right network Real America’s Voice sponsored by Turning Point USA, is best known for promoting the Pizzagate conspiracy theory. More

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      ‘He may be watching’: Mamdani on Fox News speaks directly to Trump

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      Zohran Mamdani, the leading candidate to be the next mayor of New York, stepped into the lion’s den on Wednesday when he sat for an interview with Fox News, the rightwing news organization that has spent weeks demonizing him and his democratic socialist goals.Speaking to host Martha MacCallum, Mamdani was asked about funding for his proposals, which include freezing increases on rent-stabilized apartments, providing free buses and offering free childcare – and whether other services would be cut to achieve those goals.“I don’t think we have to cut,” Mamdani said. “I’ve spoken about raising taxes on the wealthiest. And, frankly, this is an issue that we have here in New York City, and, frankly, even across this country.”Mamdani said he had spoken to people who voted for Donald Trump in New York who told him it was the “cost of living” that “drove them to vote” for the president.Mamdani said that, despite that, “what we’re seeing time and time again is we’re more focused on the question of billionaires and the most profitable corporations than we are on people who can’t even afford to make ends meet in the city”.Following his surprise victory over Andrew Cuomo in the Democratic primary, Mamdani has for months led the polls to be New York’s next mayor. A survey released by Quinnipiac last week showed Mamdani winning 46% of the vote to the former New York governor’s 33%. The Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa, was at 22%.That rise has brought attention from outlets such as Fox News, which has closely covered Mamdani, sometimes publishing multiple news stories on him a day. Jesse Watters, the network’s primetime host, has been a frequent critic, describing Mamdani as a “communist”, which he is not, and calling him “Kamala Harris with a beard”, while Sean Hannity suggested that the rise of Mamdani, who is Muslim, is evidence that “an extremism is taking root right before your very eyes”.In an interview that rehashed several rightwing critiques of Mamdani, MacCallum suggested he may lack the qualifications for the role. “President Trump said that you never worked a day in your life,” MacCallum told Mamdani, before asking what qualifies him to run the city.In response, Mamdani spoke directly into the camera, alluding to how the outgoing mayor, Eric Adams, bowed to pressure from the Trump administration to cooperate on immigration crackdowns – before the Trump-led justice department dropped a federal corruption case against him.“I want to take this moment, because you spoke about President Trump, and he may be watching right now, and I just want to speak directly to the president,” Mamdani said.“I will not be a mayor like Mayor [Eric] Adams, who will call you to figure out how to stay out of jail. I won’t be a disgraced governor like Andrew Cuomo, who will call you to ask how to win this election. I can do those things on my own. I will, however, be a mayor who is ready to speak at any time to lower the cost of living.“That’s the way that I’m going to lead this city. That’s the partnership I want to build, not only with Washington DC, but [with] anyone across this country.”The interview came as Mamdani prepared for a debate with Cuomo and Sliwa on Thursday night. Adams suspended his re-election campaign in late September.Cuomo, who has centered his campaign on reducing crime, will likely seek to contrast his decades of experience in politics with Mamdani’s newcomer status. The former governor, who resigned in 2021 after he was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women, has run numerous ads attacking Mamdani.The issue of the Israel-Hamas peace deal is likely to come up, given Cuomo’s strong support for Israel and Mamdani’s opposing stance. Mamdani has criticized Israel’s war in Gaza and called the bombing of the territory a “genocide”. Mamdani was asked questions about the region on Wednesday, including whether he would give credit to Trump for the fledgling deal.Mamdani, stressing that his focus would be on New York rather than international politics, said he was thankful for the ceasefire, adding: “I have hope that it will actually endure and that it will be lasting.”“I think it’s too early to [give credit],” Mamdani said. “But if it proves to be something that is lasting, something that is durable, then I think that that’s where you give credit.” More