“Pretend I’m on the ballot,” says Donald Trump, who’s not on the ballot.
But I hope voters do pretend, since his second term has been a disaster.
I also hope voters pretend some other people are on the ballot, such as Elon Musk, David and Larry Ellison, and the Saudi royals. That’s because the outcome of the November election may determine whether they achieve “media capture,” buying up news outlets and putting them in service of a dictator to prevent everyday Americans from knowing what their government is doing to them.
A new supersized media corporation called Skydance, a merger of Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery, is on track to launch tomorrow. It will be run by Trump supporter David Ellison, who acquired CBS last year and will now be adding CNN to his empire.
Ellison is considering asking Trump supporter Musk to invest in his media behemoth, sources told Semafor. That would deepen a relationship that already includes Ellison’s father, Larry, putting $1 billion into the social media platform X when Musk took it private in 2022.
Skydance will have 49.5% foreign ownership, including 38.5% from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. These will be non-voting, “silent” shares, David Ellison promises. Excuse my skepticism.
In any case, the Saudi dictatorship that murdered U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi will co-own two major U.S. news outlets. Trump’s Federal Communications Commission thinks this is just fine.
The Saudis and other petrostates have their mitts on other media too. Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal owns a bigger share of X than anyone except Musk, and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund is also an investor. Another X co-owner is the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, which started in China but now operates in Abu Dhabi. Its founder, Changpeng Zhao, got a suspicious pardon from Trump in a money-laundering case.
Then there’s TikTok. The Trump regime oversaw a deal in which the Ellisons and Abu Dhabi-based firm MGX each bought 15% stakes in the U.S. version of the social media platform.
Musk and the Ellisons boost Trump’s agenda – Musk with white supremacist messaging on X and the Ellisons with a CBS News operation that plays footsie with the regime. They also help MAGA financially. Musk spent $290 million to boost Republicans in the 2024 election and authorized his super PAC to spend at least $100 million this year. Larry Ellison gave $45 million to a group backing Trump’s 2024 campaign, according to the Wall Street Journal.
In exchange, Musk and the Ellisons get government help that earns them billions. The regime has eased oversight of Musk’s businesses and dropped investigations into them. It has gifted the Ellisons with favorable antitrust policies as they gobble up U.S. entertainment and news media.
The Musk-Ellisons-Saudi nexus is the most troubling media trend of the moment. But they’re not the only superwealthy people participating in American media capture.
Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, the second richest person in the world (trailing only Musk), has diminished his news outlet’s influence through layoffs and a rightward turn in its opinion section. Bezos appears to be placating Trump to protect his other businesses, including Amazon and Blue Origin, from federal harassment.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who controls both Facebook and Instagram, made a showy attempt to curry Trump’s favor after the 2024 election. Meta donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, where Zuckerberg sat with Musk and Bezos in a row of oligarchs. Meta also rolled back fact-checking, dropped diversity policies, and named Republican lobbyist Joel Kaplan as chief global affairs officer.
Another member of the row of oligarchs was Google CEO Sundar Pichai, whose company changed Lake Ontario to “Lake America” on its maps just because a demented dictator wanted it to. Many people use Google to find news, so it’s alarming when it foists Trump’s twisted version of reality on us.
Then there’s the Murdoch family’s Fox News, a key amplifier of right-wing lies. The Murdochs have problems with Trump personally, but they’re all-in on Trumpism.
And let’s not forget Trump-friendly local TV news chains such as Nexstar and Sinclair. The regime approved Nexstar’s merger with Tegna – a deal that was possible only because Trump’s FCC repealed the national ownership cap that barred a single company from reaching more than 39% of U.S. TV households.
There’s a common theme: media consolidation in the hands of the right wing.
So what do we do about it?
Well, we call it out, as I’m doing in this newsletter, which I hope you’ll share. The first step in solving a problem is increasing awareness.
We also should financially support truth-telling news outlets and boycott those that spread lies.
And we should vote in the midterms against politicians who promote a puppet press. We need congressional hearings to push back against anti-democratic media moguls and foreign bad actors trying to dominate our news.
A revitalized Congress could – and should – strengthen antitrust laws to discourage media consolidation. It could approve tax breaks for small local news outlets so they’re not gobbled up by huge corporations. I’m not saying reforms can happen instantly. For example, I don’t see how we can restore the FCC to legitimacy until we get a non-MAGA president.
But building an aggressive Congress is step one. Media that suck up to Trump for business reasons (such as Meta and Google) need to realize that an anti-fascist movement is here and they need to get aboard.
We must free this country from media capture.
This week’s media atrocity
The New York Times called former Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt “fierce,” “steely,” “nimble,” and a “homegrown star of the Trump White House” in a story about her new Fox News gig. Not a single mention of her relentless lying to the American public, which I documented last year. The obvious conclusion is that the Times doesn’t mind being lied to by taxpayer-funded “public servants” and doesn’t even think the lying is newsworthy.
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Leavitt the foxy liar.
It appears that Trump and his Fascist Republican enablers will send partisan “election-monitors” to each precinct on Election Day. Will these “monitors” wear uniforms? Will they wear masks? Will they carry guns? Does anyone believe their purpose is to ensure a free and fair election?
Young voters, women voters, and voters with brown or black skin terrify Trump and his Fascist Republican enablers. The intent to suppress their vote, (and the votes of others who oppose Republican Fascism,) remains one of Trump’s highest priorities.
In a desperate attempt to keep women, students and People of Color from voting, Texas Republicans closed 92 precincts previously serving these voters and tossed more than a million Texans off the registered voter roles.
The propaganda spewed by Trump and his racist enablers cannot coverup the fact that Republicans are using physical violence in a desperate attempt to stay in power. Federal agents are dispatched by Donald Trump, Todd Blanche, Markwayne Mullins, Kash Patel, Tom Homan, and Stephen Miller to crush Americans who oppose the regime’s criminal acts.
Two of every three Americans recognize that Trump is a liar, thief, grifter, fraudster, racist, sexual predator, and war criminal. This supermajority will win the midterm elections by blocking passage of Trump’s viciously racist, (and purposely misogynistic), “Save America Act”—a legislative obscenity specifically drafted to disenfranchise women and People of Color.
The American people will not rest until Trump—and his Neo-Nazi enablers—are removed from office, prosecuted for treason, convicted, and punished as dictated by the Constitution.