Hartmann Report

Trump is the first president in American history to seize the nation's newsrooms and attack a cartoon in the same week… The media’s job in a democratic society is to speak truth to power, not to suck up to it. But last week, CBS and its parent company Paramount waved the white flag, handing Donald Trump a $16 million bribe and agreeing to censor their own newsroom to curry favor with a twice-impeached, multiply-indicted rapist authoritarian who lost the popular vote twice. That is not journalism. That’s capitulation. And it’s devastating to democracies. The CBS merger with Skydance should never have been a political issue. In normal times, regulatory agencies like the FCC operate independently, applying laws without fear or favor. But these are not normal times.

This is the overlooked role that launched a revolution — and it's still wide open for progressives... What if, lacking an organized resistance to fascism like we have had in previous eras (the civil rights movement, SDS, BLM, the Wobbly's) the Democratic Party itself could play the role of producing radical, positive transformation across America? Sound crazy? It's actually happened twice.

There are lots of different ways of defining the American Dream. While the “middle class job with a house in the suburbs” is the most common one, being able to start and grow your own family-owned business is the version of the American Dream that Louise and I pursued.

The Best of the Rest of the News. — ICE is flagrantly violating the Constitution — and, thus, the law — all over the country, and apparently agents are getting a $30,000 bonus if they drag enough immigrants into their concentration camps. — Get ready for Social Security cuts — CBS is installing a monitor to look out for "leftwing bias." You know, like facts? — EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin is destroying the agency and it's getting no coverage at all in the media. — Trump's racist goons are trying to erase the history of slavery in America. — The Scottish people are welcoming Trump. — Does the Constitution allow cops to conceal their identities? — Is a federal judge preparing to go after one of Trump's most problematic, disgusting nominees? — Other countries are starting to think twice about using Elon Musk's Starlink satellite internet service.

When the heat's on, invent a scandal — especially if it targets America's first Black president… When the walls start closing in, Donald Trump doesn't lawyer up: he doubles down. With Epstein's ghost rattling through the headlines and the threat of explosive disclosures looming, Team Trump has rolled out its most cynical, racially-charged distraction yet: accuse Barack Obama of treason. It's not about justice. It's not about truth. It's a deliberate psyop meant to hijack the news cycle, enrage the MAGA base, and erase Epstein's name from every chyron in America. Which is why it appears that the Trump White House is closing in on the conclusion that the only story that could be "big enough" to blow Epstein off the front pages will be "Obama Committed Treason!" They're busily assigning investigators, FBI agents, lawyers, and others in the Justice Department to find everything they can that might implicate our first Black president in having committed High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Democrats and many in the media are essentially ridiculing the effort, arguing that nobody is naïve enough — or malicious enough — to believe such a story. But things that seem illogical or even flat-out nuts to reporters and Democrats may, according to a scientific study published in recent months, make perfect sense for Trump supporters.

You screamed "fake news" while the real news was your chosen savior sipping cocktails at Epstein's mansion, selling out your future, and laughing at what an easy "sucker" you were... Well, now we — and all of MAGA-land — have discovered that Donald Trump and all the senior law-enforcement officials around him have known since May that his name is in multiple places in the Epstein documents, at least according to the Wall Street Journal. That would almost certainly include the senior law-enforcement official, Todd Blanche, who is on his way to interview Ghislaine Maxwell in prison. Totally without bias, of course; no way the guy who was Trump's personal criminal defense attorney is going to try to get Maxwell to point the finger at Bill Clinton and away from Donald Trump, right? Right….. Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein were, apparently, storming teenagers while MAGA followers were storming the Capitol. It's a tough time for the true believers, and that may signal a real opportunity for us in the reality-based world to wake up some of our brothers and sisters in MAGA-land.

The CBS merger isn't a business deal — it's a pay-to-play scheme fueling America's slide into oligarchy… The CBS merger deal illustrates everything that's wrong with post-Reagan Revolution America. It's not just another corporate merger: it's a road sign on our accelerating march toward oligarchy, propaganda, and the collapse of honest media. We've watched one of the most important legacy broadcast platforms in America pay a $16 million bribe to our convicted felon president, reportedly offer him another $16 million worth of free air time, and try to sell its entire operation to a billionaire with a God complex. It's the worst of the Reagan revolution coming home to roost, on our screens, in our homes, and in our civic life. Start with the $16 million payoff: Trump sued CBS and its parent company Paramount over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, laughably arguing that CBS's editing of the interview constituted unlawful election tampering. The lawsuit was instantly and widely regarded as frivolous, but instead of fighting it, CBS quietly settled for an astonishing $16 million. No trial. No discovery. Just a big, fat check. This isn't journalism: it's tribute. It's what oligarchs have done for centuries when they want to please the king.

The explosive case for why Donald Trump Is the most dangerous criminal in U.S. history… When historians look back on this era, they'll inevitably ask how a nation built on principles of democracy, justice, and equality allowed one man to commit such a broad range of crimes and abuses, and whether Donald Trump is indeed the most dangerous criminal in American history. To fully grasp the gravity of Trump's actions, consider the extensive categories of his criminal and potentially criminal conduct, each more disturbing than the last. First, there's the relentless financial corruption. Trump has long played fast and loose with the law when it came to his finances. In New York, his company was convicted of tax fraud and financial manipulation designed to deceive lenders and inflate his wealth. Trump University was shuttered after a $25 million fraud settlement, its "students" left feeling defrauded.

With Fox sharpening the blade and MAGA losing its grip, America teeters on the edge of a political Jonestown... "He who does not punish evil, commands it to be done." —Leonardo da Vinci (anticipating Merrick Garland?) Elon Musk is probably chuckling as Trump flails; today's firestorm around the Epstein documents arguably started when he tweeted that Trump was in the files. Which has led to some significant changes in the Trump/media/politics/deep-state landscape that it's important to review. They include questions about the future of Trump, his cult followers, a possible power struggle between Trump and Murdoch, and JD Vance's Presidential ambitions. To begin: if you want everything around the Epstein furor to make sense, all you have to understand is that Donald Trump has been leading a cult.

The fastest and most enduring way to build broad, widespread prosperity (“the American Dream”) for any country is through manufacturing; it’s why the main job George Washington gave Alexander Hamilton was to figure out how to reboot and build American manufacturing (as I detail in The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America). Many products manufactured in China — including products sold into the domestic Chinese market and equipment used by the Chinese military — require parts from America. China is trying to end this reliance on us. They’re throwing massive resources into becoming technologically independent of the United States, and it’s a safe bet that their desire to seize Taiwan the way Putin has attacked Ukraine is part of their equation.