Donald Trump the Megathread part II - Mod Warning updated in OP 12/2/26

He sent the military to the wrong cities by the sounds of that.

Don't know if anyone here is a listener of The New Agents US. I listened to their interview with George Santos after he left prison a couple weeks back.

It was an eye opener, Santos absolutely dog walked them (Jon Sopel in particular) and didnt feel uncomfortable for a single second throughout the entire 20 minute conversation. The dog walking i am referring to was when Sopel suggested Trump commuting the sentence was like the action of a King and Santos managed to completely shift the conversation to talking about Biden and went on the attack and had Jon and Emily (to a lesser degree) almost sheepishly explaining their logic.

That is exactly why Santos is sitting at home now instead of in a prison, he is another very capable mouthpiece who will vigorously defend Trump despite the low morals of both of them. I would rate Maitlis highly in terms of journalistic capability, it was pretty revealing how the convicted fraudster had them choosing their words carefully.

Would be interested if anyone else heard it.

Santos will be on a redemption arc for the next 6 months talking about the harshness of prison, the lessons learned, the contrition he holds and it will all come across as a feel good story in a pliable media with Trump being highly praised.

I'd expect less from Campbell and Stewart, Sopel and Maitlis have had a career of trying to find the right questions to ask and to spot the deflection attempts.

Maybe its because they're all scared of losing access, Santos said he did the interview with the News Agents because he had spoken with Emily before. Its a sad state of affairs if this is the case.

The media's job is to sell. Whether it's paper or screen time, it's a sales job. Thinking that they are some sort of police is a mistake. They will sell any content they can in order to make a profit and remain in business. Asking difficult questions is not in their interests right now, so don't expect anything.

GOP infighting is blowing up a bit. Many of the old guard are hitting out at those questioning blind allegiance to Israel.

Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Mark Levin, Sebastian Gorka, Laura Loomer on one side. Carlson, Bannon, Owens, Fuentes, MTG on the other. Has the potential to get messy.

Meanwhile, the Dems leadership are going of their way to not endorse the runaway favourite for NY and are saying that even if Mandani wins, it won't influence Democrat National Strategy. And while there's a lot to be said to not disturb your enemy when they're making mistakes, the Dem response to the political environment continues to be vastly underwhelming at the party level.

Are you talking about 'media' or 'journalism'? Media right enough is communication, and that can be anything you like, entertainment, information, whatever. Still the job is to disseminate information and entertainment, making money is the hoped for consequence. If creating a popular, if inaccurate, version of 'news', or creating invented, AI based nonsense stories while presenting them as fact, makes money, then that is what 'the media' does. When 'The War of the Worlds' play was broadcast in the US in 1938 it caused alarm and panic, because people expected the 'news bulletin' format to be fact, not entertainment. Now it is getting to be impossible to know the difference.

Journalism on the other hand is - or was - a respected profession that found, researched and reported on news and information. Often with opinion, but to be taken seriously, opinion that was considered and worthy of comment, not just to make money for the parent organisation. Journalists have been killed, imprisoned, injured and maligned in the course of gathering that news and reporting it accurately and with integrity. It disrespects that history to lump it all together as 'media', though even some news outlets use media as a term that covers all kinds of communication, including news.

Right enough, as media and journalism have blended together, especially in America, where Fox agreed in court that Fox News was entertainment, and the worship of the concept of 'free speech' makes no demands on truth. It is becoming more difficult to to tell the difference, Somenergy's post implied they were talking about, and demanding, journalism, while calling it media.

Sorry, this rant is a bit of an aside, and just my opinion, but I believe that considered use of language is relevant and at the core of much of the often dangerous nonsense that is being disseminated currently.

You could go a layer or two above him and blame Capitalism and Governance within such an environment. Murdoch is to blame, I'm being facetious here, but the system as it is was always going to lead to this sort of an environment, and as someone else just pointed out, with AI, it's going to get a lot worse.

Who in any government outside of China/Russia is going to tell the tech companies they need to put a noose around AI and what those companies want to use it for. The horse is long gone out of the stable with respect to legislation for todays technological world.