Media

CNN host Abby Phillip issued a swift fact check against conservative podcaster Eric Erickson on X Thursday.

Erickson claimed that conservative ally Scott Jennings "was right the whole time."

The incident refers to a Jennings appearance where the CNN panel debated a Republican Party-produced sting video that attempts to claim Somali-run childcare facilities in Minneapolis are committing fraud. The video went viral and the federal government has stopped hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to many of the facilities, leaving parents desperate during the holiday break. Republicans are blaming Democratic officials, saying they turned a blind-eye to corruption.

Jennings alleged on the panel that Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) is calling any attempt to investigate the facilities “white supremacy."

The CNN panel stepped in to fact-check Jennings.

Jennings then posted his own video of his comments and a short excerpt of Walz's speech that cuts the context of his commentary.

Erickson reposted it on X, saying, "CNN needs to start each Scott Jennings appearance with a fact check where Scott said something previously, Abby and the panel insisted it was not so, and we start the next show with the video showing Scott was right the whole time."

But Phillip posted her own fact-check.

"Give me a break Eric. He was not referring to the fraud investigations in that clip. He was talking about Trump and Vance denigrating the Somali community. There plenty to criticize Walz for but he did not say that investigating fraud was akin to white supremacy."

In a Truth Social post, President Donald Trump claimed, “Lowlifes like this can only be a liability to our Country’s greatness. Send them back from where they came, Somalia, perhaps the worst, and most corrupt, country on earth,” Trump said. He also called Walz was a “crooked governor.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday posted on X that 98 individuals have been charged thus far and 60 had been found guilty. She claimed 85 of the 98 were "of Somali descent."

A fact-check revealed Bondi meant 89 percent of those charged in the Feeding Our Future case are Somali Americans, according to reporting from Associated Press.

Of the 98 individuals Bondi cited, a fact-check from The Guardian revealed that the fraud was already known under President Joe Biden's administration and were part of a Justice Department investigation before Trump was elected.

Feeding Our Future,was raided by the FBI in 2022, under the Biden administration. The investigation into the organization also began under Biden in Feb. 2021, a Minnesota Star Tribune report detailed. The first 48 people were indicted in Nov. 2022, TwinCities.com reported. The state first began to suspected fraud in 2019 and formally began the investigation in 2020 and grants were denied to the group, the report continued. The first person sentenced also happened under Biden in Oct. 2024. By that month, Minnesota Public Radio reported that federal indictments reached 70. The "ring leader," Aimee Bock, is white.

In October, Walz began a third-party audit of funds to 14 other programs.

“This is Trump’s long game,” Walz wrote Tuesday on X. “We’ve spent years cracking down on fraudsters. It’s a serious issue – but this has been his plan all along. He’s politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans.”

Donald Trump appears to have rewritten the rules at the Kennedy Center to silence Democrats and anyone not appointed by him ahead of his attempt to rebrand the famed institution, according to a new report from the Washington Post.

Trump has been mounting a takeover of the Kennedy Center for most of his first year back in the White House. Back in February, he fired the presidentially-appointed board of trustee members and installed a new round of trustees who promptly voted to elect him as chairman of the center. Earlier this month, the trustees voted to add Trump's name to the Kennedy Center, a move which cannot be done without Congressional authorization, despite the swift moves to add his name to the center's website and physical building. The takeover has prompted a wave of artists to cancel events at the Kennedy Center, and seen its ticket sales and ratings plummet.

The board claimed that this vote was unanimous, but in the aftermath, one of the remaining Democrats on the board, Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, claimed that she had been muted during the process and prevented from voicing her dissent. Beatty is one of the 23 "ex officio" members of the Kennedy Center board, a designation for trustees appointed by Congress.

On Wednesday, the Post reported that the Kennedy Center's bylaws were seemingly changed amid Trump's takeover to bar ex officio members from voting, leaving only Trump's own appointees with the authority to weigh in on changes. In a statement to the outlet, Roma Daravi, the center’s vice president of public relations, claimed that these members had never had voting authorities and the bylaw changes were only bringing them in line with "longstanding precedent."

A deeper investigation by the Post disputed this claim. The Kennedy Center's original charter lists ex officio members as part of the board of trustees and makes no differentiation between voting and non-voting members. Furthermore, recent tax filings by the center list it as having 59 "voting members," "a total that includes both general and ex officio members," the Post explained.

Whether or not these ex officio members had voting authorities in the past "seems to be in dispute," one person with knowledge of the situation told the Post. Sources the outlet spoke to appeared to be split on the matter.

“Theoretically they could vote, but our practice was not to have them vote or count toward quorum,” another anonymous source said.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat and ex officio board member, said that there was "no distinction between ex officio and presidentially appointed Trustees when it comes to members’ rights and responsibilities on the board, including voting," and further accused Trump and his loyalists of conspiring to "illegally change the bylaws to silence dissent."

President Donald Trump continues to draw strong criticism from members of the Kennedy family for renaming Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. And some musicians who were scheduled to perform at the venue have canceled their appearances to voice their displeasure.

Trump ally Richard Grenell, who Trump appointed interim president of the Kennedy Center, used the controversy to attack mainstream media outlets in a December 30 post on X, formerly Twitter.

Grenell claimed, "I have just been informed by some booked artists that they are receiving emails from @CNN and The @washingtonpost encouraging them to boycott the Trump Kennedy Center. The legacy media are left wing activists — and they are open about it."

Grenell's tweet is drawing a strong backlash.

Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois), a Never Trump conservative, mockingly posted an image of a red alarm next to the word "snowflake."

Kinzinger also posted, "This should be easy enough to prove."

Journalist John Harwood mocked Grenell as well, tweeting, "I have just been informed."

Fox News legal analyst Paul Mauro tweeted, "If they are indeed 'booked' guests, then you have a contract that CNN is attempting to impede. Sue them for tortious interference. Ground ball."

Attorney Ron Filipkowski posted, "So is Grenell just going to cry on social media every day because artists want nothing to do with his twisted MAGA perversion of the Kennedy Center? This seems like a great opportunity to showcase MAGA creative and artistic talent. I'm sure they will draw big patriotic crowds."

Author Lois Romano told Grenell, "That would be a firing offense. Please produce the proof."

Travis Akers posted, "First, this story is false. Secondly, even if it were true, I don't think 'Bedtime Stories with Kevin Sorbo' or 'Catturd Sings 80s Commercial Jingles' was going to be widely attended anyway."

Read Adam Cancryn's full article for CNN at this link.

While he may have managed to score reelection last year with a popular vote lead, Donald Trump's "avalanche of outrages" over the course of 2025 have reaffirmed that he is "unfit for office," according to an extensive and scathing breakdown from the editorial board of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

As the board noted at the start of its new piece, it "spent 2024 warning of the dangers a second Trump administration could bring." As his first year back draws to a close, the board argued that none of his shocking decisions and actions have been surprising; it's only surprise about it all has been "the speed with which he has upended the American Experiment."

Suggesting that voters last year may have been swayed by Trump's "undeniable luck, charisma, and bravado" and "nostalgia for a pre-pandemic America," the board argued that his reelection has proven to be "a folly" where he is "no longer constrained by the guardrails the conservative establishment placed on his first presidential stint." His first term, meanwhile, was "a fluke," which saw his "worst impulses... kept in check by his cabinet" and with an economy that "sailed swiftly on the course inherited from President Barack Obama."

"Instead of allowing inflation to continue to abate and the U.S. economy to live up to its label as 'the envy of the world,' he haphazardly and likely illegally instituted tariffs on global trading partners that amount to a tax on American consumers," the board explained. "Rather than sitting back and taking credit for curtailing immigration at the southern border, which concerned a large number of voters, he’s lost public support as masked federal agents abuse, harass, and intimidate immigrants and citizens alike."

The board continued: "Trump’s signature legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is set to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, all while a shrinking middle continues to lose faith in America’s institutions — some of which have willingly acquiesced to whatever Trump demands."

All the while, Trump has also been using the presidency to enrich "himself, his family, and his cronies" at the expense of everyday Americans, a push typified by the Big Beautiful Bill tax cuts, which disproportionately and overwhelmingly favor the wealthiest Americans. Indeed, a recent report from Politico found that the economy is currently being propped up by spending splurges by the wealthiest 10% of US residents, while everyone else struggles to get by and becomes increasingly agitated over Trump's mishandling of their economy.

"As 2025 ends and a new year begins, we must not allow the avalanche of outrages to numb us to the fact that Trump remains unfit for office," the board concluded.

President Donald Trump sent bombs into Nigeria Thursday, but one military expert was forced to school a Fox News host who cheered the expensive weaponry.

Fox News correspondent Lucas Tomlinson cheered, "U.S. Navy destroyer launching Tomahawk cruise missile into Nigeria targeting Islamic State on Christmas."

Thomas Karako, the director of the Missile Defense Project and a senior fellow with the Defense and Security Department at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), explained that the use of a tomahawk cruise missile was a huge waste of money.

"If you’re cheering the use of Tomahawks here, you are cheering the use of scarce, long range, standoff weapons that would be quite useful against China on a bad day. You do you. But, Nigeria? Cmon," Karako wrote on X.

Former British soldier and Ukrainian Marine Shaun Pinner pointed out to Karako that Russian President Vladimir Putin is the biggest killer of Christians.

Nigerian officials put out a statement after the attack, saying that Christians haven't been the only victims in the country. The same group is killing Muslims too.

“This is not a Christian genocide, because the facts don’t support it,” Good Governance Nigeria researcher Malik Samuel said in November. “If you look at the areas where this conflict is rife, even in the — even if you take Borno state alone, you look at northern Borno, many of these communities are Muslim-dominated. So most of the victims of Boko Haram violence are Muslims.”

“Nigeria reiterates that all counter-terrorism efforts are guided by the primacy of protecting civilian lives, safeguarding national unity, and upholding the rights and dignity of all citizens, irrespective of faith or ethnicity,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote in a statement. “Terrorist violence in any form whether directed at Christians, Muslims, or other communities remains an affront to Nigeria’s values and to international peace and security.”

At AmericaFest 2025 — Turning Point USA's first convention since the fatal September 10 shooting of co-founder Charlie Kirk — right-wing media figures were at each other's throats. The Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro, during his speech, argued that the far-right conspiracy theorists speaking at the event were bad for the conservative movement — including "War Room" host Steve Bannon, former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and someone he once employed: Candace Owens.

Shapiro fired Owens from the Daily Wire in response to comments on Israel he considered antisemitic, and Owens is now having a bitter feud with Kirk's widow and TPUSA's current leader, Erika Kirk. Owens is implying, without evidence, that Erika Kirk and the Israeli government were somehow involved in Charlie Kirk's murder. Meanwhile, Shapiro is angry with podcaster and former Fox News host Megyn Kelly for defending Owens during her AmericaFest 2025 speech.

In an article published on Christmas Eve Day 2025, Salon's Sophia Tesfaye argues that the tensions on display at AmericaFest underscore competing visions of where the GOP and the MAGA movement goes from here.

"The reality is that this isn't just a petty media feud; it's a proxy fight for the soul of the Republican Party, specifically the JD Vance-led wing that views traditional alliances — particularly with Israel — as a burden," Tesfaye explains. "Kelly has calculated that the 'young Republicans' are turning, and she is desperate to lead the charge in the broader realignment of American conservatism away from Reaganite internationalism toward a paranoid nationalism. In that context, antisemitism is not a bug — it is a feature for those who see 'globalism' as a convenient enemy."

Tesfaye emphasizes that Kelly is avoiding overt criticism of Owens because she doesn't want to offend the MAGA conspiracy theorists who voraciously consume right-wing media.

"Kelly has insisted she does not believe Israel had anything to do with Kirk's murder," the Salon journalist observes. "She wants to be seen as principled and reasonable without ever taking a stand that would alienate a lucrative audience segment. A performer always looking for an audience, Kelly has found one among people who believe that every tragedy is a 'false flag.' She is now where Tucker Carlson was years ago…. Kelly likely is refraining from criticizing (Carlson and Owens) because she knows she is just a few months away from occupying their same radicalized space."

Tesfaye continues, "The grift requires constant movement further right to maintain relevance, always finding new enemies to attack, always positioning yourself as the victim of some imaginary cancellation…. All the while, as Kelly herself has repeatedly pointed out, her podcast downloads are on the rise. She's found her audience, and now, she is feeding them what they want to hear, consequences be damned."

Sophia Tesfaye's full article for Salon is available at this link.

A social media user on Monday shared at least part of a “60 Minutes” segment about a prison in El Salvador—where the Trump administration sent hundreds of migrants—after CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss controversially blocked its release.

“Canadians, behold! (And Americans on a VPN.) The canceled ‘60 Minutes’ story has appeared on the Global TV app—almost certainly by accident,” Jason Paris wrote on Bluesky, sharing a link to download a nearly 14-minute video of the segment, which has since been uploaded here.

The segment is titled “Inside CECOT,” the Spanish abbreviation for El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center.

“Watch fast, before Corus gets a call from Paramount Skydance,” Paris added. Corus Entertainment owns Global TV. Paramount and Skydance merged earlier this year, after winning approval from the Trump administration. Weiss, a right-wing pundit, was then appointed to her position.

In a leaked email, “60 Minutes” correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi wrote that “Bari Weiss spiked our story,” and “in my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”

When the Daily Wire's Ben Shapiro spoke at Turning Point USA's AmeriFest convention on Thursday, December 18, he had some scathing words for someone he once employed: far-right conspiracy theorist and media figure Candace Owens.

This was the first AmeriFest gathering since the fatal September 10 shooting of Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk. And Shapiro called out the conspiracy theories Owens has been promoting about him.

Owens has implied, without evidence, that everyone from the French Foreign Legion to Kirk's widow, Erika Kirk, was involved in his murder.

Mentioning Owens, "War Room" host Steve Bannon, Infowars' Alex Jones and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson by name, Shapiro told the crowd, "Today, the conservative movement is in serious danger… from charlatans who claim to speak in the name of principle but actually traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty."

But the New York Times' Michelle Goldberg, in her December 21 column, argues that Frankenstein "monster" Owens is so prominent in right-wing media that MAGA won't be able to rein her in.

"This week, Charlie Kirk's widow, Erika Kirk, traveled to Nashville to meet with Candace Owens, a podcaster who has become the premier purveyor of conspiracy theories about her husband's murder," Goldberg observes. "If the summit was meant to convince Owens to back off her paranoid and fantastical speculations, it failed. On Thursday, Owens had on her show a man who claimed to have seen Erika Kirk at an army base the day before Kirk's assassination, implying that Erika was somehow part of the plot against her husband. That plot also involves, in Owens' telling, the French Foreign Legion, the federal government and leaders of Turning Point, Kirk's organization, all somehow masterminded by demonic Zionists."

The liberal Times columnist continues, "Owens' musings are unhinged, but Erika Kirk's trip to Nashville, brokered by the conservative star Megyn Kelly, demonstrates that they've become too influential for right-wing leaders to ignore…. Kirk's killing, far from knitting the movement together in grief and anger, has precipitated a bitter, squalid internecine feud."

In 2024, Shapiro fired Owens from the Daily Wire for comments he considered antisemitic. But Goldberg stresses that Shapiro hasn't been able to slow down her momentum in right-wing media.

"In a world where traditional gatekeepers have lost most of their power," Goldberg laments, "she's a star. This is partly a story about conservatives creating a monster they can't control. Owens, after all, has been saying nutty things for a long time…. Rather than ostracize her, however, powerful conservative organizations cultivated her. Republicans invited her to testify before Congress about why white nationalism wasn't a problem…. Having elevated her in large part for her willingness to say outrageous things about her opponents, people on the right are now surprised by her willingness to say outrageous things about them."

Michelle Goldberg's full New York Times column is available at this link (subscription required).

In a Monday morning Truth Social rant, President Donald Trump rails at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) following her "60 Minutes" interview with Lesley Stahl, demanding an apology from CBS for giving her a platform.

"The only reason Marjorie 'Traitor' Brown (Green turns Brown under stress!) went BAD is that she was JILTED by the President of the United States (Certainly not the first time she has been jilted," Trump said.

In the interview, Greene doubled down on her criticism of Trump, saying that his policies were not genuinely "America First". She also claimed that Trump became "extremely angry" with her for signing a petition to release the files related to deceased convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

"Too much work, not enough time, and her ideas are, NOW, really BAD — She sort of reminds me of a Rotten Apple! Marjorie is not AMERICA FIRST or MAGA, because nobody could have changed her views so fast, and her new views are those of a very dumb person," Trump continued.

Trump sued CBS News, its parent company Paramount and "60 Minutes" veteran journalist Stahl for $20 billion over the editing of the news magazine's interview with Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential campaign.

Stahl has expressed anger at the situation, predicting accurately that Paramount would settle with Trump to facilitate a corporate merger that would compromise the show's journalistic integrity.

In his rant, Trump says that "washed up, Trump hating, 60 Minutes 'correspondent,' Lesley Stahl, who still owes me an apology from when she attacked me on the show (with serious conviction!), that Hunter Biden’s LAPTOP FROM HELL was produced by Russia, not Hunter himself (TOTALLY PROVEN WRONG!), interviewed a very poorly prepared Traitor, who in her confusion made many really stupid statements."

David Ellison, whose father, Larry , is a Trump ally, acquired Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon and Paramount Pictures in an $8 billion acquisition which received FCC approval in July.

"My real problem with the show, however, wasn’t the low IQ traitor, it was that the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air. THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME!" Trump continues.

"Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE! Oh well, far worse things can happen," he adds.

And while the lawsuits have been tossed and CBS News now has another Trump ally in charge in Bari Weiss, whose media company The Free Press was acquired by Paramount Skydance for $150 million, including a new position as head of CBS News in October — a move Trump praised — the president is still not happy.

"P.S. I hereby demand a complete and total APOLOGY, though far too late to be meaningful, from Lesley Stahl and 60 Minutes for her incorrect and Libelous statements about Hunter’s Laptop!!! President DJT," he concludes.

Although Newsmax TV and One America News (OAN) have much smaller audiences than Fox News and Fox Business, they enjoy hardcore MAGA followings that view them as more pro-Donald Trump than Rupert Murdoch's right-wing media empire. Fox News and Fox Business, as some far-right Newsmax and OAN viewers see it, aren't pro-Trump enough.

Regardless, Fox News hosts — from Laura Ingraham to Sean Hannity to Jesse Watters — have often been strident cheerleaders for Trump's second presidency. Never Trump conservatives are much more likely to be featured on CNN or MS NOW.

But Salon's Sophia Tesfaye, in an article published on December 7, observes that even some Fox News hosts are starting to question Trump's handling of the economy.

"Donald Trump is preparing to launch his new 'affordability tour,' heading to Pennsylvania early next week to revive the worn pledge: 'I alone can fix it,'" Tesfaye explains. "It's the same nostalgia-driven promise that powered his 2016 ascent. But something has shifted for MAGA. Not only is the economy still grinding under the strain of inflation, high housing costs, and rising bills for energy and insurance, the messaging around those issues is starting to crack — even in places that once functioned as Trump's best bulwarks."

One of those "bulwarks," according to Tesfaye, is Fox News.

"The White House, for its part, is telling Americans one more time that they should really blame (former President) Joe Biden for anything and everything that feels off in American life," Tesfaye notes. "Meanwhile, the media ecosystem that once served as Trump's megaphone is notably less willing — or at least less able — to carry his tune. 'There seems to be an issue with the way Republicans are handling this affordability issue,' Fox News anchor Sandra Smith noted Friday, (December 5)."

Tesfaye continues, "Kevin Hassett, the director of Trump's National Economic Council, couldn't even catch a break on Fox News, where host Martha MacCallum grilled him this week about polling that places responsibility for the economy squarely at Trump's feet…. In another recent Fox News segment, Jesse Watters admitted bluntly: 'It's Trump’s economy now.… he owns it now.'"

However, Tesfaye points out that "Trump hasn't been abandoned by everyone at Fox News."

"Fox Business analyst Charles Payne tried his hand at some optimistic spin on Friday, arguing that 'ironically, the media may be overplaying their hand because all of this affordability stuff, as it fades next year when the economy takes off…. they are going to have to find a different story,'" Tesfaye notes. "That sounds suspiciously like wishful thinking, especially considering that 71,321 job losses were announced in November, taking the total to 1.17 million in 2025."

Sophia Tesfaye's full article for Salon is available at this link.

The New York Times is being criticized for giving Erika Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA and the widow of slain MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk, a platform at their 2025 DealBook Summit Wednesday in New York City.

During her interview with NYT financial columnist Andrew Ross Sorkin, Kirk discussed her new leadership role, the murder of her husband and her views on "career-driven" women.

Kirk also "said her pain at losing Mr. Kirk had 'morphed into a form of purpose that you see will outlive you,' and that realization offered her comfort," the Times reports.

According to the event's official X account, "Kirk called it 'ironic' that so many women voted for Zohran Mamdani in New York's mayoral election" at the 2025 DealBook Summit. She expressed concern that career-driven women view the government as a "replacement" for family, potentially leading them to delay marriage and having kids."

Journalist Jonathan Cohn called the newspaper of record out on X, saying, "The anti-feminist grift going back to Phyllis Schlafly is to travel the country, run a well-funded nonprofit, and ignore their own children in order to focus on telling other women that they belong in the kitchen."

"Erika Kirk: Has multiple degrees and is currently studying for a doctorate • Got married in her early 30s and had children in her mid-30s, on her own timeline • Was 5 years older than Charlie Kirk • Is a CEO and businesswoman …She’s not going to 'end' feminism. She is a product of feminism," noted X user Jamie Bonkiewicz.

Another X user wanted to know "why is the New York Times giving Erika Kirk a platform to tell the women of nNew York (a place she doesn’t live) to not be career driven (as she grifts off her husband’s death)?" to which another X account replied, "She’s was most likely prepped with a bunch of questions. It’s so obvious she’s so well rehearsed. She doesn’t know what the average young woman is facing because if she did, she would have a completely different view."

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the married hosts of MS NOW's "Morning Joe" have been conspicuously absent lately and are sending the show's producers into a panic, reports RadarOnline.

"Insiders now claim the couple's increasingly high number of absences has sparked a 'workplace meltdown' as the network scrambles to cover for them," Radar reports.

Before the network rebranded from MSNBC, the hosts "reportedly appeared together in just 70 of 124 episodes," Radar notes.

"Scarborough couldn't be found for 29 episodes, and Brzezinski was absent from 41, which worked out to about one missed show every three days. In July alone, Brzezinski missed two straight weeks of episodes," they add.

The couple typically hosts the program "from a decked-out studio at their Jupiter, Florida, home," Radar explains.

"Given their extremely short work commute, many speculated whether the absences were due to one partner sleeping in while the other goes live on-air at 6 a.m.," they say.

The pair's schedules, whatever they are, have ruffled feathers of the show's staffers, according to Radar, leading to "chaos" behind the scenes.

"There’s no leadership," a senior producer tells entertainment journalist Rob Shuter, who writes on Substack. "Every day is a scramble. Who’s hosting? What’s the tone? Who’s running the ship? No one knows."

An anonymous insider tells Radar that the show's producers are panicking as they head into a big election year.

"They have special deals, endless vacation time – but this summer went too far. We're headed into an election year, and we're stuck with empty chairs," the source says.

Days before the network became MS NOW, however, the couple started to reappear more regularly, they report, clocking "their longest consecutive streak of appearances since Memorial Day at three weeks and counting."

Disgraced former congressman Matt Gaetz (R-FL) showed up as a member of the media at Tuesday's Pentagon press briefing, according to journalist Aaron Rupar.

"Get a load of the 'journalist' asking questions at the Pentagon press briefing," Rupar posted on X along with a picture of Gaetz sporting his old "Representative Matt Gaetz" jacket at the briefing.

Gaetz resigned from Congress on November 13, 2024 after President Donald Trump had announced his intent to nominate him for the position of Attorney General.

That nomination was rendered null and void after a House Ethics Committee report that found "substantial evidence" he violated federal and state laws, including engaging in sexual activity with a 17-year-old girl, paying women for sex and drugs, and obstructing the investigation.

Gaetz has denied the allegations and since then, he has hosted his own eponymous weeknight political talk show on the Trump-friendly One America News Network (OANN).

In October, dozens of esteemed journalists from over 30 major news organizations voluntarily returned their Pentagon press credentials and vacated their workspaces in a mass protest against a new, restrictive press policy implemented by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that required reporters to sign an agre ement acknowledging that they could face having their credentials revoked if they published any information — even unclassified —that had not been officially authorized for release by the Pentagon.

Since then, the Pentagon press pool has been filled with MAGA influencers like Gaetz. So-called "MAGA whisperer" Laura Loomer just received her own credentials.

National security journalist Seth Hettena also noted Gaetz's presence in the press pool, adding that Loomer was also there asking questions about Qatar.

Hettena also pointed out on X that "Jack Posobiec, a former Navy urinalysis officer who lost his security clearance for posting conspiracy theories on Twitter, is out here."

Journalist Kevin Baron took to X to say, "Y'all, MATT GAETZ was one of the fake reporters at today's fake Pentagon press briefing."

Two powerful groups of media executives very friendly to President Donald Trump are currently embroiled in a fight that puts FCC chair Brendan Carr in an awkward position, reports Politico's John Hendel.

"The nation’s largest TV station owners want Carr’s Federal Communications Commission to loosen the rules that limit how many stations a single company can operate, a goal that many conservatives have been pressing for years," Hendel writes.

These owners, however, have a "formidable opponent in Trump confidant Chris Ruddy, the majority owner of Newsmax Media, who wants to keep the rules in place and now appears to be making headway with the president," he explains.

Trump took to Truth Social Sunday to demonstrate that headway, Hendel notes.

"NO EXPANSION OF THE FAKE NEWS NETWORKS,” Trump wrote, "echoing Ruddy’s argument that removing the ownership cap would hurt conservatives," Hendel explains.

“If anything, make them SMALLER!” Trump added.

Carr, Hendel writes, "has shown a knack for disruptive, MAGA-pleasing culture-war moves, like his public upbraiding of comedian Jimmy Kimmel and accusing '60 Minutes' of being unfriendly to conservatives," but now he's conflicted.

"Carr has signaled he may want to change the 21-year-old limit on TV station ownership, which was intended to prevent any one broadcaster from too much power over what Americans see on television," Hendel explains. "Loosening the ownership rule would allow right-leaning companies like Sinclair Broadcast Group to expand."

Large TV station owners are hitting a growth limit, Hendel writes, so "a larger cap would give more power to station owners — seen by many conservatives as an ideological counterweight to the mainstream national networks that control TV programming."

Newsmax's Ruddy, however, is standing in the way, Hendel says.

"Ruddy is trying to block any change, arguing that the cap — which limits a broadcaster’s reach to 39 percent of U.S. households — preserves the right market balance between TV broadcasters and cable outlets, and allows a greater mix of voices," he writes.

“It’s not going to work,” Ruddy tells Politico. "The president doesn’t want this, and so I have no doubt that he will not support the FCC going to extraordinary but potentially illegal lengths.”

Joining Ruddy is Charles Herring, president of the pro-Trump One America News Network (OANN) cable channel, who, Hendel writes, "shares a marketplace wariness of TV station owners gobbling up too much power."

“Independent [and] diverse voices will disappear,” wrote Herring in an X post.

Under Trump, this has turned "into a political tug-of-war and an influence battle between big names on the right," Hendel says.

Former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer recently wrote an op-ed in right-wing outlet The Daily Caller in which he argued that Carr should lift the cap.

“Conservatives who believe in free enterprise should not be vocally encouraging Big Brother to continue barring broadcast TV companies like Sinclair and Nexstar from competing in the free market,” argued Spicer, a contributor to Nexstar’s cable network NewsNation.

Nexstar, Hendel notes, is "trying to usher through a $6.2 billion deal to buy rival station owner Tegna, a merger that would only be possible if Carr relaxes the cap. The new company would operate 265 TV stations, reaching more than half the country."

Ruddy, however, says "that the FCC is working to go against the interests of the president and his supporters — and really against most consumers.”

“We have a history of big companies going in and giving conservative think tanks money to do reports and stand on issues,” Ruddy adds “And it’s not working.”

Through all this, Trump "is being pulled in both directions on an issue he cares a great deal about: what’s on television," he writes.

“If this would also allow the Radical Left Networks to ‘enlarge,’ I would not be happy,” Trump wrote.

"That will likely give broadcasters and their conservative allies room to try to counter Ruddy’s narrative — and some are already casting the issue accordingly," Hendel explains.

On Monday, Nexstar said that "Americans want more access to local news and a variety of voices without the filter of the coastal elites."

For now, the person truly stuck in the middle is Carr.

"Carr’s path to lifting the cap is uncertain, and his own staff say they’re likely to end up in court over the issue. Detractors don’t even believe the agency has the authority to unleash this consolidation at all, saying it’s a matter for Congress," Hendel says.

"We haven’t made a final decision there yet,” Carr told Politico on Nov. 18. “I continue to be very open minded.”