How Trump Uses Unfailingly Loyal Media to Get His Way, No Matter the Consequences; a Look at California Legislative ‘Pork’ Projects–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Nov. 10, 2025

Indy Digest: Nov. 10, 2025

Following up on last week’s discussion of the importance of truth: President Donald Trump and his administration are working with right-wing media and social-media influencers to push their agenda—and they’re more than happy to use lies, racism and intimidation to bulldoze anyone in their way.

This is the main takeaway from a fantastic piece of journalism Reuters published over the weekend. While the aforementioned main takeaway is not exactly “news” to people who have been paying attention, Reuters does a masterful job of going behind the scenes to explain how this is all being done—and they bring the figurative receipts as proof, by interviewing four dozen people and reviewing many, many TV shows, social media posts and podcasts.

A snippet:

As Trump deploys National Guard troops into U.S. cities, influencers embedded with figures such as Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have widely shared content echoing the administration’s portrayal of Democratic-led cities as engulfed in chaos, even as law enforcement data shows violent crime declining in most urban areas. A spokesperson for Noem declined to address the discrepancy.

Inside the White House, the president invited right-wing media personalities to join senior officials in the State Dining Room, soliciting their input and criticizing traditional news outlets—all on live television.

Other episodes underscore this symbiotic relationship. In April, more than a dozen national security officials were dismissed amid an influencer-led campaign. In August, a Black Democratic lawmaker received a surge of racist threats after the Trump administration used an official government account to repost a false allegation made by another right-wing influencer. …

Right-wing influencers and media outlets say they are ideological allies of Trump, not propagandists, sharing the belief that he is rescuing the country from decline. They and the administration accuse traditional media of covering him unfairly. “It’s a reaction to the nearly decade-long smear campaign of President Trump and his family and MAGA in this country by the mainstream media,” said Laura Loomer, who describes herself as both a Trump loyalist and an independent journalist.

One of the key examples of this near total fealty to Trump involves the Epstein case. Reuters reports:

In late February, a group of influencers met Trump and senior officials at the White House to discuss the Epstein matter. Under pressure from conservative influencers, the Justice Department reassigned hundreds of FBI agents and analysts from other pending criminal investigations to review tens of thousands of documents related to Epstein, current and former agents said.

So when the Justice Department said in early July that the review found no credible evidence to support Epstein conspiracy theories, the MAGA world was shaken. Some leading Trump influencers expressed surprise and disappointment, noting that the president’s team had campaigned on the Epstein files. For a moment, it looked like Trump risked losing support over his refusal to release more information.

Still, the Reuters analysis of podcasts, TV shows and social media posts from 22 leading right-wing and conservative media figures in the three weeks after the July memo found they largely blamed senior Trump officials, not the president. Only one of the 22 figures, self-avowed white nationalist Nick Fuentes, consistently faulted Trump. About half a dozen others briefly criticized him, but their disapproval lasted only a day or two before they resumed blaming others.

This Reuters piece is highly recommended reading. Again, it doesn’t reveal much that was not already known, but it connects all the figurative dots—and shows how extensive and powerful the pro-Trump-no-matter-what media/influencer network truly is.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Both the duration of the government shutdown and the fate of November’s SNAP payments are very much up in the air as of the moment we hit “send” on this newsletter. But it’s crucial to note: The Trump administration is doing everything it can to keep hungry Americans from getting their full November benefits. Remember that. The Associated Press reports: “President Donald Trump’s administration returned to the Supreme Court on Monday in a push to keep full payments in the SNAP federal food aid program frozen while the government is shut down, even as some families struggled to put food on the table. The request is the latest in a flurry of legal activity over how the program that helps 42 million Americans buy groceries should proceed during the historic U.S. government shutdown. Lower courts have ruled that the government must keep full payments flowing, but the Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to keep them frozen for now. The high court is expected to rule Tuesday. The seesawing rulings so far have created a situation where beneficiaries in some states, including Hawaii and New Jersey, have received their full monthly allocations and those in others, such as Nebraska and West Virginia, have seen nothing.”

• Meanwhile, CNN looks at the consequences of skyrocketing health-insurance premiums—the thing Democrats were fighting to prevent before they caved: “The expiring beefed-up subsidies, along with rising health care costs, contributed to insurers hiking rates by 26%, on average, for next year, according to federal data. But what enrollees will actually pay will be far higher because they won’t have the additional aid. Premium payments will more than double, on average, according to KFF, a nonpartisan health policy research group. Certain policyholders will be hit harder than others. Those with incomes just above the poverty level will go from paying $0 or nearly $0 in premiums to being on the hook for a few hundred dollars a year, said Cynthia Cox, KFF’s director of the Program on the ACA. Nearly half of enrollees are in this group. ‘For them, it’s a lot of money,’ Cox said. ‘It may be a big enough increase that they feel they can’t afford it.’”

• The president, in plain sight and with no remorse, continues to use his office to enrich himself. One of the latest examples, as reported by The Independent (U.K.): “Wine and cider marketed by President Donald Trump is being sold at Coast Guard-run stores in Washington, D.C., and Virginia, inviting fresh ethics concerns about the First Family’s sprawling business interests, according to a report. Coast Guard Exchanges, which provide service members and their families with tax-free shopping, have begun stocking the president’s line of alcoholic drinks in their branches in the nation’s capital and in Centreville, Virginia, Forbes reports. The development was first revealed in an Instagram post by an anonymous whistleblower, who identified themselves as a Homeland Security employee working in counter-terrorism, and included a photograph of the bottles being displayed prominently on a promotional table at one of the exchanges. Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin confirmed to The Independent that the products are being sold in the stores and said in a statement: ‘The brave men and women of the USCG are pleased to be able to buy Trump wine and cider tax-free.’” Ugh.

• BBC News is in the middle of a major crapstorm over a news program that aired misleadingly edited speeches by Donald Trump. However, the Independent (U.K.) says the crapstorm is not simply about these edits: “There were some serious accusations in the claims made by (Michael Prescott, a former external adviser to the BBC’s editorial guidelines and standards committee), once the political editor of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Sunday Times. Most notably, he described how (BBC News show) Panorama had edited together two parts of a Donald Trump speech without informing viewers. Other accusations were made over its reporting on Gaza and trans rights. However, the criticisms were all made from the same political perspective: that the BBC’s reporting on such issues was too liberal and that it had ignored such concerns. … ‘Make no mistake, this was a coup,’ said a BBC source.” Meanwhile, Trump is threatening to sue BBC for $1 billion. You can see the misleading edits here.

• Ride-share services started offering women the option to request a female driver due to safety concerns. Now the ride-share services are being sued by a bunch of male drivers. Time magazine says: “The dual class action suits allege that the functions—which followed thousands of sexual harassment and assault lawsuits against Uber and Lyft over the years—have limited the economic opportunities for men and discriminated against them because of their gender. Lawyers acting for the plaintiffs argue that male drivers ‘are discriminated against and receive fewer and different rides than they otherwise would absent the policy.’ They contend that the policy ‘reinforces the gender stereotype that men are more dangerous than women.’ California has some of the nation’s strongest anti-discrimination laws. The lawsuit accuses both Uber and Lyft of violating the Unruh Act, a California civil rights law that ‘expressly prohibits sex discrimination by business enterprises.’ They are seeking $4,000 in damages per male driver in California for violating state law.”

• The headline from our partners at Calmatters: “California lawmakers found money for these pet projects even as they slashed the budget.” Details: “Despite facing a $12 billion deficit this year, California’s Legislature still managed to spend at least $415 million for local projects to help lawmakers win their next elections. CalMatters found close to 100 earmarks inserted into just one of the state’s budget bills for local projects and programs that had little apparent benefit to anyone outside the lawmakers’ districts. Some of the earmarks raise concerns about legislative priorities in a difficult budget year, such as lawmakers spending millions from the general fund on museums, trails, parks and other amenities in wealthy communities. The spending includes $5 million in general fund money for a LGBTQ+ venue in high-cost San Francisco, $2.5 million for a private day school in Southern California and $250,000 for a private farm-animal rescue on the North Coast. Around $250 million of the local-project earmarks were funds taken from the $10 billion Proposition 4 climate bond California voters approved last year.”

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … baby formula! CBS News has the disconcerting details: “Federal and state health officials are investigating 13 cases in 10 states of infant botulism linked to baby formula that was being recalled, authorities said Saturday. ByHeart Inc. agreed to begin recalling two lots of the company’s Whole Nutrition Infant Formula, the Food and Drug Administration said in a statement. All 13 infants were hospitalized after consuming formula from two lots: 206VABP/251261P2 and 206VABP/251131P2. The cases occurred in Arizona, California, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas and Washington.”

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