Latest news with #DrudgeReport
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Drudge mocks Trump with ‘TACO' page
Matt Drudge mocked President Trump on Thursday with a headline on his aggregation page, making fun of a new trade on Wall Street in reaction to the president's economic policies. 'TACO,' as the trade has become known among investors and traders, stands for 'Trump always chickens out' and looks to capitalize on the major fluctuations in the market resulting from the president's on-again, off-again tariff policies. On Thursday afternoon, the Drudge Report featured the lead headline 'TACO' with a photo illustration of Trump dressed in a suit made of tacos and wearing a taco crown. Trump was asked about the trade during a press conference with reporters Wednesday and scoffed at the trend. 'I've never heard that. You mean because I reduced China from 145 percent that I set down to 100, and then down to another number, and I said you have to open up your whole country?' Trump responded. 'And because I gave the European Union a 50 percent tariff and they called up and said, 'Please let's meet right now.'' The Drudge Report has for years been a widely read aggregation site known for its tabloid headlines and oddball angles, particularly among conservatives. Drudge has turned on Trump in recent years, however, attacking the president over his policies and some of his more controversial comments. The White House recently launched a Drudge lookalike site, featuring a similar style of aggregation directing visitors to pro-Trump stories and articles. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
5 days ago
- Business
- The Hill
Drudge mocks Trump with ‘TACO' page
Matt Drudge mocked President Trump on Thursday with a headline on his aggregation page, making fun of a new trade on Wall Street in reaction to the president's economic policies. 'TACO,' as the trade has become known among investors and traders, stands for 'Trump Always Chickens Out,' and looks to capitalize on the major fluctuations in the market resulting from the president's on-again, off-again tariff policies. On Thursday afternoon, the Drudge Report featured the lead headline 'TACO' with a photo illustration of Trump dressed in a suit made of tacos and wearing a taco crown. Trump was asked about the trade during a press conference with reporters on Wednesday and scoffed at the trend. 'I've never heard that. You mean because I reduced China from 145 percent that I set down to 100, and then down to another number, and I said you have to open up your whole country?' Trump responded. 'And because I gave the European Union a 50 percent tariff and they called up and said, 'Please let's meet right now.'' The Drudge Report has for years been a widely read aggregation site known for its tabloid headlines and oddball angles, particularly among conservatives. Drudge has turned on Trump in recent years, however, attacking the president over his policies and some of his more controversial comments. The White House recently launched a Drudge lookalike site, featuring a similar style of aggregation directing visitors to pro-Trump stories and articles.
Los Angeles Times
27-05-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Trump, ‘60 Minutes' and corruption allegations put Paramount on edge with sale less certain
One fateful October decision to trim two convoluted sentences from a '60 Minutes' interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris has snowballed into a full-blown corporate crisis for CBS' parent company, Paramount Global, and its controlling shareholder, Shari Redstone. President Trump's $20-billion lawsuit — claiming '60 Minutes' producers deceptively manipulated the Harris interview to make her look smarter — has festered, clouding the future of Paramount and the company's hoped-for $8-billion sale to David Ellison's Skydance Media. The dispute over the edits has sparked massive unrest within the company, prompted high-level departures and triggered a Federal Communications Commission examination of alleged news bias. The FCC's review of the Skydance deal has become bogged down, according to people familiar with the matter who weren't authorized to comment. The agency, chaired by a Trump appointee, must approve the transfer of CBS television station licenses to the Ellison family for the deal to advance. A lawsuit resolution, through court-ordered mediation, remains out of reach. And last week, three Democratic U.S. senators raised the stakes by suggesting, in a letter to Redstone, that a Trump settlement could be considered an illegal payoff. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) warned in their letter that any payment to Trump to gain favorable treatment by the FCC could violate federal anti-bribery laws. Paramount's dealings with Trump 'raises serious concerns of corruption and improper conduct,' the senators wrote. 'Under the federal bribery statute, it is illegal to corruptly give anything of value to public officials to influence an official act,' the senators said. Redstone is desperate for the Paramount-Skydance deal to go through. Her family's holding company is cratering under a mountain of debt. Paramount's sale to the Ellison family would provide the clan $2.4 billion for their preferred shares — proceeds that would allow the Redstones to pay their nearly $600 million in debt — and remain billionaires. Paramount, Skydance and a spokesperson for Redstone declined to comment. While recusing herself from granular and final decision-making, Redstone has made it clear that she wants Paramount to settle with Trump, rather than wage an ongoing beef with the sitting president, according to people familiar with the matter but not authorized to discuss internal deliberations. Figuring a way out of the dispute has divided the company, according to insiders. For CBS News professionals, apologizing to Trump over routine edits of a lengthy interview is a red line. Tensions have spilled into public view. Redstone has been cast as the villain. The Drudge Report, created by journalist Matt Drudge, who got his start at CBS in Los Angeles, last month published a photo of 71-year-old heiress, identifying her in all caps as 'The woman who destroyed CBS News.' Two top CBS News executives have resigned. Both refused to apologize to Trump as part of any settlement, the knowledgeable sources said. Most CBS journalists and 1st Amendment experts see Trump's lawsuit a shakedown, one seemingly designed to exploit Paramount's vulnerability because it needs the government's approval for the Skydance deal. 'Settling such a case for anything of substance would thus compromise 1st Amendment principles today and the broad notion of freedom of the press in the future,' prominent press freedom lawyer Floyd Abrams said. Paramount has stressed that it sees the Trump lawsuit and the FCC review of the Skydance deal as separate. 'We will abide by the legal process to defend our case,' a Paramount spokesperson said. But '60 Minutes' correspondent Scott Pelley connected the two for viewers during an extraordinary April broadcast, in which he rebuked Paramount management on air at the end of the program. That, according to sources, angered some of Paramount's leaders. While '60 Minutes' has received additional corporate oversight, some insiders pointed to Pelley's acknowledgment that 'none of our stories have been blocked.' All the high-level scrutiny has put Paramount and Redstone in a box, and the Skydance deal looks less certain than it did months ago. 'Who's going to sign that settlement, knowing that you could be accused of paying a bribe?' asked one person close to Paramount. Paramount Global's path to peril began long before the infamous '60 Minutes' edits. The company was diminished by management turmoil and years of cost-cutting, which would eventually force Redstone to find a buyer for one of Hollywood's most storied studios. Should New York-based Paramount, which also owns Comedy Central, MTV, Nickelodeon and the famed Melrose Avenue movie studio, fail to complete its sale to Skydance by its October deadline, the deal could collapse. Paramount then would owe $400 million to Skydance as a breakup fee, putting the company in further dire financial straits. Skydance and its investor RedBird Capital Partners have agreed, once they take over, to inject $1.5 billion into Paramount, helping it pay down some debt. Redstone would also be on the hook to repay her financiers. Two years ago, a Chicago banker rescued the Redstone family investment firm, National Amusements Inc., with a $125-million equity investment. The family's finances were strained after Paramount cut its dividend to shareholders that spring during the Hollywood writers' strike. The family's dire financial situation was a leading impetus for Paramount's sale. If the deal fell through, Redstone would also have to repay a $186-million loan from tech mogul Larry Ellison. The billionaire Oracle co-founder and father of David Ellison extended the loan so National Amusements could make a looming debt payment. National Amusements holds 77% of Paramount's controlling shares, giving the Redstone family enormous sway over Paramount management. Critics privately note Redstone's role in setting up the company for the current drama. It took nearly a year for Redstone and Paramount's special board committee to negotiate a deal with Skydance. The independent directors spent months searching for an alternate buyer, adding to the delays that now haunt both sides. Had the parties reached agreement sooner, the companies could have asked the FCC for approval earlier last year during the less hostile Biden administration. Instead, weeks were spent haggling over various demands, including having Skydance indemnify Redstone and her family against shareholder lawsuits. In the end, the Ellisons also agreed to help Redstone pay for her New York apartment and private jet after the deal closes, according to the knowledgeable people. Paramount petitioned the FCC for review in September. By that time, political environment was caustic for mainstream media companies. Conservatives were upset over ABC News' handling of the Sept. 10 debate between Trump and Harris after ABC anchors fact-checked Trump in real time, including pushing back on his false claim that Haitian immigrants in Ohio were eating pets. Trump reportedly backed out of a '60 Minutes' appearance — long a traditional stop for presidential candidates — because CBS intended to fact-check his remarks. Conservatives viewed such formats as a double standard and as an example of how news bias has seeped into major networks' coverage of Republicans. 'This was an issue we were already sensitive to and focused on,' said Daniel Suhr, president of the conservative Center for American Rights legal group, which filed an FCC complaint against Walt Disney Co.'s ABC after the debate. At CBS, another firestorm had engulfed the newsroom. Redstone, who had previously urged news executives to bring more balance to CBS' coverage, was livid after managers scolded 'CBS Mornings' co-host Tony Dokoupil for his sharp questioning of author Ta-Nehisi Coates about Israel during an interview segment. Coates' book, 'The Message,' compared Israel's treatment of Palestinians to the Jim Crow South in the U.S. Redstone, who is Jewish and has focused her philanthropy on battling antisemitism in the wake of Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, publicly rebuked CBS News managers for their treatment of Dokoupil. The controversial exchange in the Harris '60 Minutes' interview also happened to concern Israel. '60 Minutes' correspondent Bill Whitaker suggested to Harris that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was not listening to the Biden administration. Harris gave a long-winded three-sentence response. CBS broadcast the convoluted first sentence on its Sunday public affairs show, 'Face the Nation,' on Oct. 6. The following night — the anniversary of the Hamas attacks — '60 Minutes' aired only her most forceful and succinct third sentence: 'We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.' Conservatives zeroed in. 'CBS created this mess for itself. ... The conservative ecosystem was outraged when they saw the two different clips because it vindicated everything,' Suhr said. 'Folks had always believed the media was selectively manipulating interviews like that.' Journalists routinely cut extraneous words to provide clear and compact soundbites for audiences. CBS released a statement saying that it had not doctored the interview. Rather, news producers said they trimmed Harris' response to cover more ground during the broadcast. Internally, CBS debated whether to release the full transcript to quell the furor — but it stopped short at first. Some people close to the company have been particularly critical of CBS for not immediately releasing the unedited video. Trump sued in late October for $10 billion. After he returned to the White House, he doubled his demand to $20 billion. One of Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's first moves was to revive a separate news distortion complaint against '60 Minutes,' which Suhr had filed shortly after the broadcast. The matter had been dismissed by the previous Biden-appointed chair. CBS and the FCC released the Harris footage in February. By that time, the controversy had consumed the company. Last month, Bill Owens, the executive producer of '60 Minutes' stepped down, citing a loss of editorial independence. '60 Minutes' continued with Trump-critical stories — to the chagrin of people who want the Skydance deal to close. Less than two weeks after CBS Chief Executive George Cheeks pledged support for his team, Wendy McMahon, the head of CBS News, was forced to go. 'It's become clear that the company and I do not agree on the path forward,' McMahon told her staff in a note last week. Insiders note other McMahon decisions, including the introduction of a new 'CBS Evening News' format, which has led to plummeting ratings, as factors in her fall. McMahon could not be reached for comment. Redstone and others hope the mediation with Trump's attorneys will produce a truce. But several questions remain: What will it take for Paramount to appease the president? And could the company's leaders be prosecuted if they pay the president a multimillion-dollar settlement? In 'normal times,' officials might be alarmed by a president's demand for a big check, said Michael C. Dorf, a Cornell Law School professor. 'These are not normal times, however, so the president will likely be able to get away with soliciting a bribe from Paramount, just as he is getting away with extortion of law firms and universities,' Dorf said. Staff writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Here's the Deranged MAGA Propaganda Coming to Voice of America
While Donald Trump attempts to bypass Congress in cutting funding to NPR and PBS, his senior advisor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, perennial election loser Kari Lake, announced on X earlier this week that she's struck a deal with One America News to 'provide' the right-wing outlet's 'newsfeed services' to the government-funded outlets her agency oversees—Voice of America being the most prominent among them. Lake touted the deal as 'an enormous benefit to the American taxpayer,' since OAN, which has a TV channel and website, agreed to provide their newsfeed 'free-of-charge.' 'We are grateful for their generosity,' she wrote. Yet the generosity might actually be flowing in the other direction, as Lake's move will allow OAN to tap into VOA's weekly audience of 360 million people around the world—and turn a once unbiased global beacon of American journalism into a Pravda for the Trump regime. VOA was first created in 1942 to help combat fascism and Nazi disinformation. As it notes in its mission statement, 'An essential guarantee of the journalistic credibility of Voice of America content is the 'firewall' enshrined in the 1994 U.S. International Broadcasting Act. The firewall prohibits interference by any U.S. government official in the objective, independent reporting of news, thereby safeguarding the ability of our journalists to develop content that reflects the highest professional standards of journalism, free of political interference.' That's not exactly OAN's approach to journalism. Scour its content (if you dare), and you'll find stories that seem engineered for the White House's new Drudge Report–style propaganda feed. Some merely put a MAGA spin on the news ('Trump April Jobs Report Shatters Expectations As Native-Born Workers Win Big') or heap laughable praise on Dear Leader ('Trump is just as much of a lion as Churchill'), while others are pure fiction ('DOGE Team Exposes Millions Of Illegal Aliens Voting In Elections'). Worshipful coverage of the GOP has always been part of OAN's DNA, but the network, which launched in 2013, hitched its wagon to MAGA as the movement descended (further) into conspiracy theories in the wake of the 2020 election. Founder Robert Herring insisted that anchors promote Trump's claims of election fraud and barred them from referring to Biden as 'president.' It was a poor business decision. YouTube suspended it for misinformation in 2020 (read all about it at VOA!), and in 2022 DirecTV dropped it entirely. Over the past two years, OAN has settled two defamation lawsuits related to its election denialism. But perhaps nothing better explains OAN's values these days than the fact that they gave a weeknight show to former Florida Representative Matt Gaetz, who is so detestable that even many Republicans have distanced themselves from him. Trump nominated Gaetz for attorney general late last year, but Gaetz was forced to withdraw after a House ethics report—led by Republicans, mind you—found 'substantial evidence' that during his time in Congress he had sex with a seventeen-year-old, paid women for sex, and accepted gifts exceeding congressional limits. All of that doesn't stop Gaetz from presenting false and misleading information and spewing xenophobic, anti-LGBTQ, and racist rants every night. In one recent segment he claimed that, under Biden, 'Democrats let around 20 million people into America—chaotically, illegally.' (There are about 11 million undocumented immigrants, and they have arrived over decades.) Gaetz, a lawyer, argued these people aren't entitled to any due process, despite Supreme Court rulings stating otherwise, adding 'What due process did Americans get when our communities, hospitals, schools, and jails were overrun by the Third World?' He giddily described Trump's $1,000 self-deportation offer ('It's called America First, and if you don't like it, you can self-deport too') and then turned to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to an El Salvador prison. The show posted an image riffing on Shepard Fairey's famous Obama 'Hope' poster—but featuring Abrego Garcia with an Obama 'O' on his shoulder and the label 'MS-13,' despite spurious evidence that he was ever a member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang. Another host, the oft-mendacious Dan Ball, frequently espouses conspiracy theories and has a regular 'This Week in Woke America' segment that makes misleading charges against liberals like Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whom he calls 'champagne liberals.' He's brought on disgraced doctor Robert Malone to defend Robert F. Kennedy's unfounded claim that vaccines may be causing autism. He's also welcomed Steven Friend, a former FBI agent who, before becoming an advisor to FBI Director Kash Patel, had his security clearance revoked after he refused to arrest anyone involved in the January 6 attack. In a segment on 'Biden's scheme to spy on Americans,' Friend claimed that the former president's spying 'laid the groundwork for them to debank people,' 'coordinate with universities to repress free speech,' and alert the military that 'pro-lifers were potentially terrorists.' Ball called it a form of 'tyranny'—the kind, he said, that Democrats accuse Trump of doing, but 'he's not.' It's not just what you'll find on OAN that's the problem, though. It's also what you won't find: criticism of the president. The network observed Trump's 100th day in office with a fawning piece entitled, 'Celebrating '100 Days' In: Notable Accomplishments In The Second Trump Administration,' which credited Trump with a slight decline in inflation and decent jobs reports while failing to mention that the stock market has declined 5 percent since inauguration. It also praises toothless, culture-war executive orders such as 'Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship' and 'Restoring 'Truth and Sanity' to American History.' OAN is unabashed about its mission, which has nothing to do with independent journalist that tells the truth, free of political interference. The network is literally independent, as a business entity, but figuratively it's an arm of Trump's propaganda network. OAN runs political interference on his behalf, and does such a good job of it that Trump himself, back in 2023, sent them a thank-you video. 'To all of the great views and people of OAN, you've been my friend and I've been your friend for a long time,' he said. 'These are brave people that are doing this. I want to just congratulate them…. I really believe we owe them a big debt of gratitude.' Now, Trump is repaying that debt. Spreading OAN content via Voice of America might not cost U.S. taxpayers a dime, but it will impoverish the minds of anyone around the world who listens to it seeking the truth.
Axios
04-05-2025
- Politics
- Axios
Trump's White House is the hottest right-wing media outlet
The White House is deploying its platforms and personnel in ways that often feel more like how a modern media company would operate than a national government. Why it matters: Through flashy stunts, meme-heavy social media postings and camera-friendly Cabinet secretaries, Trump 2.0 has been built to win attention and fire up the MAGA base. The big picture: The strategy reflects a sophisticated understanding of the current media environment — and takes the jolting step of incorporating it into the official communications of the United States. Driving the news: The White House this week launched a website styled like the Drudge Report to share Trump-friendly news. A few days earlier, it decorated its lawn with posters of arrested unauthorized immigrants. The purpose: Position the posters so they'd be visible in TV news crews' live shots. On social media, Trump administration accounts have employed provocative tactics — often on immigration — to tap into the zeitgeist of those platforms and get reach and reaction. It's a striking contrast to the benign and restrained approach that previous administrations and other countries take with their online presence. The official White House X account posted an ASMR-style video of migrants being deported and a cartoon rendering of a crying woman being arrested by ICE. This week it tapped into the viral 100 men vs. one gorilla meme to tout deportations. White House TikTok and Instagram accounts have posted videos of arrests and ICE patrols, accompanied with lyrics "You don't have to go home but you can't stay here," and "I will be kickin' you out." Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem posted a video from El Salvador's notorious CECOT prison with dozens of bare-chested inmates as the backdrop. Trump drew criticism this week for posting an AI-generated image of himself dressed as the pope on Truth Social days ahead of the papal conclave and as the mourning of Pope Francis continues. Zoom out: Critical staffing decisions appeared to be influenced as much by on-camera abilities as government experience. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi were both battle-tested in the art of verbal combat and pithy one-liners as Fox News regulars. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy was a Fox Business host. Zoom in: The White House is even making money through events in the mold of a D.C. media company: It sold corporate sponsorships for its annual Easter Egg Roll. The bottom line: Trump's climb to the pinnacle of power was fueled by a new media environment that breathed life into his movement in novel ways.
