📺 The MAGA-fication of Mainstream Media
Peter Rothpletz on right-wing billionaires' death grip on the press, Tucker Carlson yucking it up with Nick Fuentes, Graham Platner's new headache, and the latest out of Gaza.
On this day in 2022, Paul Pelosi was attacked by a Trump supporter with a hammer at his San Francisco home and was hospitalized with a skull fracture. Of course, Republicans expressed their utmost sympathy after the attack. Oh wait…
Good morning! Peter here with some troubling news about my Twitter addiction. Per Apple’s analytics, my average daily screen time last week was a whopping 7 hours and 36 minutes. The beneficiary? You, dear reader. I go spelunking through the Death Star trash compactor of that hellsite so you are free to enjoy your life. But your boy desperately needs to touch grass.
In today’s First Draft, the ‘Orbanization’ of the US media hits warp speed, Amazon is set to carry out a likely historic mass layoff, Graham Platner grapples with even more campaign chaos, white nationalists unite as Nick Fuentes sits for a tête-à-tête with Tucker Carlson, and our own Mehdi Hasan claps back at Vice President JD Vance.
Currently, anyone can read ‘First Draft,’ but it won’t always be free. Subscribe today to ensure you always get ‘First Draft’ in your inbox, unpaywalled. If you’re already a subscriber, you can always support our journalism even further with a donation.
The ‘Orbanization’ of our Media
The press has only itself to blame.
After more than a decade of engaging in shameless bothsidesism, whataboutism, and fanatical, greed-driven appeals to far-right eyeballs, America’s corporate, legacy media appears poised to fall victim to the grave, fascist threat it helped bring about, sustain, and supercharge in the form of MAGA.
In case you missed it, yesterday’s news cycle was dominated by a smörgåsbord of headlines signaling the institution’s imminent, crumbling downfall.
First, Natalie Korach over at independent media newsletter Status reported that, but a day after a White House visit, CNN chief executive Mark Thompson implored staff on a network editorial call to soften their coverage of Trump’s East Wing demolition – a damaging optic that the administration has sought to suppress in the media.
Second, veteran journalist and ‘CBS Evening News’ co-anchor John Dickerson announced on Instagram that he will leave the network, which was recently subjected to the stewardship of The Free Press’s Bari Weiss (via billionaire tech and media moguls Larry and David Ellison), come December.
“I am extremely grateful for all that CBS gave me – the work, the audience’s attention, and the honor of being a part of the network’s history – and I am grateful for my dear colleagues who’ve made me a better journalist and a better human. I will miss you,” Dickerson wrote in his post.
In short order, we were treated to a report in The New York Post that Weiss is aggressively seeking to poach either Fox’s Bret Baier or CNN’s MAGA mouthpiece, Scott Jennings, to potentially replace Dickerson.
Jezussss.
Third, we got wind that Will Lewis, publisher of the Washington Post, and billionaire owner Jeff Bezos himself aimed in recent months to steal Olivia Reingold from the aforementioned The Free Press to be a new face in the paper’s opinion section.
Reingold, if you’re oh-so lucky to be unaware, was one of the authors of perhaps the single most depraved, despicable, innumerate, and instantly reputation-ruining pieces of “journalism” published in modern history, which aimed to undermine claims that Gaza is facing a famine by highlighting a select number of starving children who just so happened to also have additional ailments – like Cerebral Palsy.
Strap in, my friends, this Lede only gets darker from here…
Finally, Semafor’s Max Tani reported there’s at least one serious and “influential” media observer arguing that in order for a Warner Bros. Discovery acquisition deal to be greenlit by the Trump administration (with Comcast), the widow of the late Charlie Kirk, Erika, should be brought in to serve as the editor-in-chief of a combined CNN/NBC News.
The liquid you just felt splash your face was me doing a spit take.
What. The. Actual. Four Letter Word Beginning with “F.”
So here we are: the US Fourth Estate writing its own obituary in real time. You can almost hear Murrow screaming from the grave.
In India, it took several years for autocratic far-right Prime Minister Narendra Modi to dominate the media, have his billionaire friends buy up the news channels, and plant sycophants in the top anchor roles. In Hungary, it also took several years for autocratic far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán to do the same.
Trump has done it in mere months. What does that say about our corporate-owned legacy media in the United States?
That it was broken to begin with. That it was ripe for a far-right takeover. That it now shills for – as Mehdi often puts it – the guy from Home Alone 2.
🗞️ What You Need to Know
Chilling overhaul: ICE leadership is reportedly being purged in order to be recast in the image of a Border Patrol chief who will be in federal court today for throwing two tear gas canisters into a crowd without provocation. Field office directors are being fired in at least a dozen cities.
Platner’s plight continues: Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner’s campaign manager and longtime friend Kevin Brown stepped down yesterday. He was on the job for only four days — or 0.36 Scaramuccis.
Pam Bondi targeted: A Minnesota man was arrested after he allegedly offered $45,000 for capturing Attorney General Pam Bondi “dead or alive,” but “preferably dead.” VERY BAD! I repeat, VERY BAD!
Bankruptcy nation: The Trump administration is seeking to prohibit state laws from clearing medical debt from an individual’s credit report.
Corporate layoffs: Amazon is planning to eliminate up to 30,000 jobs, which could be the largest layoff in its history. Darn, Bezos, if only you had succeeded in hiring Olivia Reingold. All would be well!
Two white nationalists walk into a bar… Nick Fuentes, a Holocaust denier, joined far-right broadcaster Tucker Carlson for a sit-down interview. Fuentes has been doing the rounds of right-wing media in recent weeks. Nothing brings the right together quite like their hatred for minorities.
🐦 Mehdi vs… the Vice President
JD Vance’s chief job these days is trolling the left on Twitter. On Monday, he came after Mehdi and… well… I’ll let Mehdi explain:
In February, the vice president of the United States took time out of his (busy?) schedule to quote-tweet me and call me a “dummy.” On Monday, he was back at it, snarkily trying to dunk on me for daring to criticize He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Criticized: the late Charlie Kirk. There was a time when the vice presidency was held by political titans like Teddy Roosevelt, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, hell, even Dick Cheney. That… ahem… is no longer the case:
Vance, who threw his own rural community under the bus to get ahead in life, then took Peter Thiel’s millions to get further ahead in life, and then went from calling Trump “Hitler” to becoming his Number 1 Sycophant to get a heartbeat away from the presidency, cannot spell my name. But worse, he confuses me with Zohran Mamdani (I had been criticizing Kirk’s Islamophobic attacks on Mamdani, not on me). But hey, even if you’re married to a brown woman, I guess it’s still hard to tell us brown folks apart, right?
Kudos, Mehdi. Drop that mic.
🧠 Pop Quiz!
Which US billionaire is the single biggest private donor to the Israeli military, via ‘Friends of the IDF’?
Keep your eyes out for the answer below!
🇵🇸 Don’t Forget Gaza
The Israeli Army chief says the assault on Gaza will continue until the bodies of the remaining deceased hostages are returned. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was holding a meeting to discuss “Israel’s response” after his office announced that the remains Hamas handed over on Monday did not match the DNA of any of the remaining 13 deceased hostages whose bodies have yet to be returned. Hamas has warned that finding the remains will take time, given the massive amount of destruction and rubble the bodies are under.
Israeli forces have killed at least 93 Palestinians in the enclave since the ceasefire began, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.
Hareetz reported that the Israeli military is taking waste, construction debris, and other items from Israel and dumping them in Gaza.
Dozens of humanitarian groups working inside Gaza called on the Israeli government to allow more aid into the Strip. According to the organizations, Israel rejected 99 requests by international NGOs to deliver aid between Oct. 10 and Oct. 21. The denied aid included blankets, mattresses, food and nutrition supplies, hygiene kits, sanitation materials, and children’s clothing.
🌏 Anywhere But America
🇺🇦 A UN report accused Russia of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine and “making civilian life unbearable” for Ukrainians.
🇸🇩 The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group seized control of the city of el-Fasher in the Darfur region, drawing dire concern from world leaders on the escalation of violence in the country. On Sunday, the UN migration agency reported that roughly 2,500-3,000 people have fled the city, which was the last remaining Sudanese army stronghold in the region.
🌀🇯🇲 Hurricane Melissa is barreling toward Jamaica with 175 mph winds. The Category 5 storm is expected to bring “catastrophic flash flooding” and a “life-threatening storm surge,” according to the US National Hurricane Center. The country’s prime minister warned that there is “no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a Category 5.”
🇨🇲 Cameroon‘s 92-year-old Paul Biya, the world’s oldest president, was declared the winner of the latest election. The results come after deadly protests by opposition supporters, who called the election fraudulent.
🚨 Don’t Miss It!
Before John Fetterman became known as the worst Democratic senator, there was Kyrsten Sinema. And while she’s since (thankfully) left office, Zeteo’s very own Andrew Perez has the latest details on what she’s up to now, and it’s… as awful as you might have expected. It involves revolving doors, AI, and Donald Trump.
The story will land in your inbox later today!
🤯 WTF
Yesterday, Mehdi made ‘First Draft’ all about Trump’s mental health. Well, guess what? Trump boasted to reporters on Air Force One about his “perfect” MRI results but refused to explain exactly why he received the scan in the first place.
🧠 Trivia answer: Larry Ellison, who is busy taking over the US media with his son David.
🦊 Fox Watch
Riley Gaines, former swimmer turned anti-trans campaigner turned pro-Trump grifter, took to Fox to express her eagerness to debate AOC. Over the weekend, she tweeted a picture of AOC, Bernie Sanders, and Zohran Mandani, saying “We’re being destroyed from within.” AOC clapped back saying, “Maybe if you channeled all this anger into swimming faster you wouldn’t have come in fifth.”
ICYMI From Zeteo
Zeteo’s Melanie Riehl and Akshay Gokul contributed to this newsletter.
Still want to get Zeteo content, but not this newsletter? You can unsubscribe directly from ‘First Draft’ by going to ‘manage subscription’ in Substack, scrolling down, and toggling the button for ‘First Draft’ off.
"The liquid you just felt splash your face was me doing a spit take."
You and me both!
excellent thank you... irony and humor helps...and lots of sharp pins stabbing these ?? ... I don't know what to even call them....