First Draft: 😍 Habibi…Trump Loves Zohran
The New York City mayor went back to the White House again and got another massive win from Trump. Plus: the pro-Israel, pro-Trump Ellison family media empire is poised to take over – and kill? – CNN.
🚨 BREAKING: The Green Party in the UK, under the leadership of the anti-genocide, anti-billionaire Zack Polanski, just pulled off a stunning, shock, historic victory in the Gorton and Denton parliamentary by-election in the UK. Another blow to Keir Starmer’s centrist Labour Party, which had held the seat for years but came in third, and a new blow to Nigel Farage’s hard-right Reform UK party.
Good morning friends! Prem here, mourning the illusion of legacy media being our saviors, and hoping you see today as an opportunity to tell three people in your life to subscribe to your favorite up-and-coming independent media company: Zeteo.
There’s no paywall on today’s edition of this newsletter, thanks to our friends at Ground News. Cheers!
In today’s ‘First Draft,’ Zohran Mamdani charms Donald Trump yet again. The Ellison family media empire continues its march to control everything we watch on behalf of the GOP and Israel. And as the Department of Homeland Security is mired in scandal, it still continues to terrorize the nation and lie at-will about it.
Socialist Mayor Charms Fascist President
A man known for his smile came with an iron face, while a man often scowling couldn’t help but beam.
On Thursday, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani traveled to Washington, DC, for a surprise visit with President Donald Trump. There, a canny Mamdani brought mocked-up newspapers to present to the narcissistic Trump, to help the attention-seeking president imagine what the headlines could look like if he joined with Mamdani to build 12,000 new housing units in New York. Mamdani called the meeting “productive,” and based on Trump’s charmed smile, it seemed so.
The mayor’s office is now calling it ”the largest housing and infrastructure investment in New York City in more than 50 years.”
The meeting was all the more productive given what else Mamdani seemed to help secure: the release of another detained Columbia University student.
On Thursday morning, DHS agents descended upon Columbia’s campus to detain a student from a university residential building. The school had quickly announced DHS seemed to be lying, but the bombshell came Thursday evening.
In a video, Columbia University president Claire Shipman said that five agents breached a residency with no warrant, had claimed to be police officers looking for a missing child, even being caught on security footage flashing photos of the “missing child,” and ignored a campus safety officer’s demands for a warrant to call their boss.
In short, DHS agents lied, in order to gain access to the building and detain their target student, Ellie Aghayeva.
The arrest set off a massive uproar in the city – from local officials up to members of Congress, and Mamdani himself. In his meeting with Trump, Mamdani expressed his concern about the detention of Aghayeva. Not long after, Trump called him to say that she would be “imminently released.” And right after that, Aghayeva announced via Instagram that she was out.
An instantaneous reversal by Trump on a DHS operation.
Mamdani also asked Trump to drop the ongoing cases against Mahmoud Khalil, Yunseo Chung, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Leqaa Kordia – the latter of whom is still in detention almost a year later.
The meeting was yet another installment in Trump’s fascinating treatment of the mayor many feared would be the target of the president’s ire. (In their first meeting last month, the pair made global headlines for a surprisingly cordial meeting, in which Trump defended Mamdani against critics, calling him a “very rational person.”)
Regardless of the interpersonal dynamics, Mamdani’s record cannot be discounted. His back-to-back meetings with the president in the White House have not only normalized him – and his socialist ideals – they have also secured the release of a student targeted by DHS, advanced the case for other pro-Palestine student protesters, and possibly unleashed a historic new city housing project.
Last year, Mamdani’s opponent in the mayoral election, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, claimed that “Trump would go through Mr. Mamdani like a hot knife through butter,” that the young candidate “would be Trump’s delight.” He thus far seems completely wrong about the former, but apparently and bizarrely right on the money about the latter.
🗞️ What You Need to Know
Trump’s threat to elections: Trump’s dangerous voter suppression bill may be dead in the Senate, as Republicans don’t appear to have the votes to gut the filibuster. But pro-Trump conspiracy theorists have reportedly circulated a draft executive order in which the president could declare a fake national emergency and still attempt an unconstitutional federal takeover of elections.
Not having it: Judges are not happy with the Trump administration’s refusal to comply with court orders in immigration cases. Yesterday, a judge in New Jersey threatened to force Trump officials to testify under oath over their repeated violations of court orders, and a judge in Minnesota scheduled a contempt hearing for prosecutors and an ICE official over the administration’s failure to return confiscated property to released detainees.
No war in Iran: Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie are set to force a vote next week on the Iran War Powers resolution to prevent Trump from triggering a war in the Middle Eastern country. But, it remains unclear if they’ll have enough votes to pass the resolution in the House, as two centrist Democrats have already come out against the bill.
Majors’s comeback campaign: Actor Jonathan Majors – who was convicted for harassing and abusing his then-girlfriend and virtually dropped by all of Hollywood – will make his cinematic return, starring in a new film produced by - wait for it - Ben Shapiro’s media company, The Daily Wire. From the Marvel Cinematic Universe to the Far Right Influencer Universe!
Department of Human Suffering: Border Patrol agents picked up Nurul Amin Shah Alam, a nearly-blind Rohingya refugee who spoke little English, last week in Buffalo, New York. After realizing they had no basis to deport him, the agents dropped him off five miles away from his home and left him there without notifying his family or attorney. He was found dead five days later. And shocker: newly-released horrifying footage shows DHS lied about their role in this.
A panel of Trump appointees on the Commission of Fine Arts just fast-tracked the approval of a 90,000 sqft White House ballroom. Despite 99% of public commenters opposing the project, committee members voted to support the development.
Although there have been over 200 articles covering it, 13% of those lean right. Meaning if that’s all you consume, you might not even hear about it – and the consequences critics of the project are warning about.
The Ground News mobile app and website show perspectives across the political spectrum, and include built-in bias comparisons, media outlet funding sources, and factuality scores for publishers. Ground News scans 50,000+ stories to ensure you have the full picture for every story.
With Ground News’ Vantage Plan, information becomes your superpower. Learn more at ground.news/zeteox and get 40% off the Vantage Plan for just $5 a month.
(This portion of the post was sponsored content.)
🧠 Pop Quiz!
Yesterday, a federal judge ruled that the IRS illegally shared taxpayer addresses with ICE. How many times did the judge say the agency shared information unlawfully?
Keep your eyes out for the answer below!
RIP CNN
For a moment, it seemed like a lock: Netflix was going to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. It won. But Paramount launched a hostile bid to stay in the running. It kept tweaking the offer, forcing Netflix’s hand to offer an all-cash deal to try boxing it out.
And it appears now that Paramount finally won. On Thursday, Warner Bros. announced that Paramount’s offer was “superior.” And Netflix dropped out of the running, saying the deal is “no longer financially attractive” and that it “was always a ‘nice to have’ at the right price, not a ‘must have’ at any price.”
Paramount Skydance, lest we forget, is owned by nepo baby billionaire David Ellison, who installed Bari Weiss as boss over at CBS News. His father, Larry Ellison, is currently the fourth-richest man on Earth (and often oscillates between the first few spots).
And so if this deal goes through, the pro-Israel and pro-Trump Ellison family media empire will stretch further than you could even imagine. Here’s just a sampling of what they will own: Warner Bros. (New Line Cinema; DC Studios; HBO; CNN; TBS; TNT), Oracle Corporation (Major stake in TikTok), Paramount Skydance (Paramount Pictures; CBS; Nickelodeon; MTV; Comedy Central; BET).
Will CNN now go the way of CBS News? Our well-connected Zeteo media columnist Justin Baragona gives an inside look at how folks inside both networks are reacting:
Considering that Netflix had a signed deal in hand just a few days ago, which would have seen Warner’s cable assets – including CNN – spun off into its own separate company, staffers at the cable news giant had been breathing a sigh of relief that they wouldn’t be MAGA-fied like CBS News under editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.
Now that Paramount has apparently won, and the Ellisons have already promised Trump they’d make “sweeping changes” at CNN, the mood at the network has become extremely dour and employees are already looking at the exits.
“NO ONE here wants David Ellison OR Bari Weiss as a boss,” one CNN on-air personality told me, adding that the feeling among staff is “this is very, very bad for journalism and our ability to be independent.”
Another network producer pointed out that much of the staff – including himself – is “very disappointed” that CNN could soon be part of Paramount and the growing Ellison media empire.
“This was the worst case scenario for us. The last thing we – and all CNN people I’ve spoken to – wanted was to be owned by the Ellisons,” the producer exclaimed. “CNN is gonna be a shell of its former self after this.”
Other network employees I spoke to echoed those same sentiments, all while noting that there’s a lot of “guess I need a new job” talk going around the CNN headquarters right now.
CNN chief Mark Thompson tried to talk his staff from the ledge on Thursday night. Letting them know that Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav will be holding a town hall on Friday, followed by one of his own soon after, Thompson urged his employees not to “jump to conclusions” over the looming Ellison era, in an internal email forwarded to me.
Meanwhile, with morale already remarkably low at CBS News just a few months into Weiss’s reign, one senior staffer at the Tiffany Network offered their condolences for the CNN journalists who will soon be under the Ellison regime.
“I need to keep reminding myself it can – and will – always get worse,” the staffer said. At the same time, they said that the staff “should” be freaking out since “it’s hell over here.”
CNN declined to comment.
Thanks, Justin! It’s important to note here that it isn’t necessarily over. State attorneys general, for example, have jurisdiction. California AG Rob Ponta chimed in Thursday night. ”Paramount/Warner Bros is not a done deal,” he said.
💬 Quote Unquote
“If this committee is serious about learning the truth about Epstein’s trafficking crimes, it would not rely on press gaggles to get answers from our current president on his involvement; it would ask him directly under oath about the tens of thousands of times he shows up in the Epstein files.”
That was part of Hillary Clinton’s opening statement to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee yesterday.
🌏 Anywhere But America
🇵🇸 Don’t forget Gaza: Thirty-seven vital aid organizations will be forced to end their operations in Gaza and the West Bank on Sunday if they refuse to hand over details about their Palestinian staff – a move the groups say would put their employees in grave danger.
🇮🇷 Eyes on Iran: Iranian and American negotiators met yesterday in Geneva for continued nuclear talks mediated by Oman, which claimed “significant progress” was made despite the fact that a deal was not reached. Meanwhile, Iranian state television reported that Tehran would continue enriching its uranium stockpile as Trump continues to weigh launching illegal strikes against the nation.
🇸🇩 ‘Utter disregard for human life’: UN human rights chief Volker Türk announced that 11,300 civilians were killed in Sudan in 2025, more than double compared to the year prior. He called out the use of explosive weapons by both the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), slamming their “utter disregard for human life.”
🇦🇫🇵🇰 ‘Open war’: Pakistan said today that it is in a “open war” with Afghanistan as the two countries attacked each other amid escalating tensions.
🇧🇷 Flooding death toll climbs: Brazilian authorities announced that 46 people in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais died after torrential rain caused extreme flooding earlier this week. At least 21 people remain missing.
😳 WTF?!
If you need any more reasons to hate FIFA ahead of this summer’s World Cup, then just take a look at this bizarre AI-generated ad promoting FIFA and the Board of Peace’s new partnership. They want to spend millions on building a stadium in Gaza, rather than invest that money into true recovery efforts. Simply disgusting.
🧠 Trivia answer: Approximately 42,695 times.
📖 Weekend Reads
The Media Merger You Should Actually Care About
As major media companies continue to find their pending mergers at the mercy of President Donald Trump, the question remains: how long until the press is no longer free? In this New Yorker article, Jon Allsop puts the spotlight on a media merger that could explain why Jimmy Kimmel was taken off the air last September.
The US men’s hockey team made us proud to be Americans. Trump helped them ruin it
These days, there are very few things that Americans can all rally behind. Thanks to Trump, that list has become even shorter, after he invited the US men’s hockey team to Tuesday’s State of the Union address. Kavitha A. Davidson explains in this MS NOW piece why the team fell short in their response, and what it all says about the party that continues to “use women’s sports as a political cudgel.”
America lied about the Iraq war. Then they weren’t believed about Ukraine
This past week marked four years since Russian forces invaded Ukraine – an event that came as a surprise to many European nations. While the continent is often criticized for not heeding the US’s warnings about Putin’s inevitable invasion, Moustafa Bayoumi reminds readers in The Guardian why the US handling of Iraq gave it a reputation for being an unreliable narrator.
ICYMI From Zeteo
Zeteo’s Melanie Riehl, Akshay Gokul, and Lara Strydom contributed to this newsletter.
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Thank-you, Prem. "Socialist Mayor Charms Fascist President" ... so that's what an honest, accurate headline looks like! Zohran is definitely "doin' it right on the wrong side of town". Hats off to this man. Are you paying attention Dimocrats?
The ongoing bromance between Zohran Mamdani and the sociopathic fascist in the White House is starting to wear thin. I realize that the mayor was on a righteous mission to increase housing in NYC and to lobby for the release of yet another detained CU student as well as 4 others still illegally detained. I get it. I realize that sometimes you have to do what you have to do to get where you need to go.
However, having to stroke the fragile ego of the toddler-man with the artificial front page headline is a bit like having to kiss the head of a cobra to get what you want. Sooner or later, the mayor may get bitten by the venomous snake. I'm trying to figure out which one of the 2 is being played like a violin. I guess time will tell.
This whole affair is eerily reminiscent of scenes in Francis Ford Coppola's masterpiece The Godfather where supplicants must beg Don Corleone for favors by offering money or loyalty in exchange for his influence. We have witnessed this scene play out time and time again by foreign leaders, Apple's Tim Cook (a plague on his house) and other oligarchs and countless politicians who have sold their souls to the devil (I'm looking at you Rubio, Graham, JD Vance to name 3). It's called begging for favors from The Don. It's called a cult of personality. It's called extortion, bending the knee and self-debasement.