So Greenland, Canada, Panama, and Colombia walk into a bar …
The few remaining pundits who predicted more stability in Donald Trump’s second term barely made it a week before world events ate their lunch.
Over the weekend, Trump got into a diplomatic back-and-forth with Colombia after President Gustavo Petro refused to allow American deportation flights to land in Colombia. In response, Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to slap Colombia with 50% tariffs and a host of other financial and travel restrictions, which he then backed away from when the two countries came to an agreement.
Only one media outlet ran with the story during the day: Fox News’ weekend show “Sunday in America,” which treated the whole incident as a huge show of Trump’s strength. After a week of Trump, it’s clear the mainstream media is abiding by a policy of “if you can’t say anything nice, say nothing at all.”
NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” for example, “ran a lengthy segment featuring Democrats heaping criticism on … private citizen and retiree Joe Biden. Yeesh.
Let’s dive into a few other big stories the mainstream media missed, and why they’re going to matter a whole lot in a few weeks’ time.
Hurricane Tulsi
If Pete Hegseth is Republicans’ example of how to do everything right during a challenging confirmation process, Trump’s nominee for director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is a cautionary tale of how to do everything wrong. Though Gabbard hasn’t appeared in a cable news headline in weeks, she’s been busy burning bridges and alienating Republicans in what can only be described as a shambolic series of Senate office visits.
Gabbard’s behavior has been described as transactional and clueless. One GOP senator recently called her a barnacle that weakened the whole ship.
As Daily Kos reported last month, that’s nothing new for Tulsi, who has been forced to beg for votes from lawmakers who either openly dislike her or doubt her qualifications. Gabbard has struggled with basic facts about what the job of DNI entails and has largely restricted her media appearances to far-right outlets in order to avoid facing tough—or even basic—questions.
One problem still dogging Gabbard? Her own former staffers, who have been warning Senate Republicans for months that Gabbard routinely fell for Russian propaganda. It’s not hard to understand why that might be concerning for someone whose main job would be detecting and countering sophisticated propaganda campaigns.
Remember: Hegseth barely scraped over the finish line in a 50-50 vote that required new Vice President JD Vance to cast the tie-breaking vote and saw only three Republicans voting no. His victory was enabled in large part by a media strategy that isolated him from even the most mundane reporter questions. Gabbard’s undisciplined and unfocused campaign has convinced a growing number of Senate Republicans that they’ve seen enough.
Exodus from Elon Musk’s X
Another month of Elon Musk acting out in public, another month of declining audience numbers over on X, the platform Musk bought in October 2022 and has been slowly ruining since then. Well, maybe not as slowly as we think: Competitor Bluesky has grown to nearly 30 million users as more former tweeters say goodbye to the increasingly toxic social network.
As Daily Kos reported, the number of Bluesky users grew to more than 29 million in recent months, with only 9 million back in September and 3 million at the start of last year.
It isn’t just that millions of people are leaving X in favor of other platforms. It’s also the quality of the users who are abandoning Musk’s far-right playground. Journalists, musicians, actors, and other high follower-count users have made very public exits from the platform. Taylor Swift’s millions of fans even made the collective decision to dump X even though Swift still posts there. That’s some powerfully toxic brand mojo.
Now would be a terrible time for Musk to face troubles at X, because he’s also on the outs with Trump and MAGA leaders after continually tripping up Trump’s agenda. As Daily Kos reported last week, Musk’s attacks on Trump’s proposed Stargate AI venture left the president furious—and strengthened calls among top Republicans for Musk to be pushed out of Trumpland. Media outlets have been kind enough to allow Musk’s meltdown to unfold privately, sparing the mega-billionaire the stress of unflattering headlines.
With X bleeding money and Musk on the outs with his political sugar daddy, the world’s wealthiest crybaby is about to face some tough conversations with his closest allies. It wouldn’t be out of character for Musk to suddenly sell X or step away from his pet project entirely. It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.
Reach out!
Keep the conversation going all week by sharing stories you think the media missed with me at @themaxburns on Bluesky! And remember: If you’re tuned to cable news, you aren’t even getting half of the story.
Until next week, keep your eyes peeled and stay inquisitive, friends.
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