1. Trump bans CNN, MS NOW and Politico
What happened
On Friday, Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House for reporting “FICTION and LIES.”
He named no specific story.
His stated reason: they write negative news on purpose to hurt Republicans.
Saturday, their reporters were turned away at the gate. He says more outlets will follow.
Monday, the White House blocked CNN from its scheduled turn running the shared TV camera on Trump’s trip to the UN.
The other four networks in the TV pool, Fox included, refused to replace CNN. The pool suspended its shared TV coverage of the president.
CNN, MS NOW and Politico have sued.
The camps
Defenders: nobody was censored. All three can still publish anything. Access is a privilege, trust in media sits at 28%, and presidents have always chosen who they talk to.
Critics: courts have long held that once the White House lets the press in, it can’t throw reporters out over their coverage. The correspondents’ association, led by a Fox News reporter, wants the three reinstated. The five TV pool networks, Fox included, said jointly: “No administration should restrict a news organization because it objects to its reporting.”
My take
There’s what a president can do and what he ought to do.
“Can” is a legal question. I’ll leave it to the lawyers.
“Ought” is for the rest of us.
The law is the floor.
It tells you what you can get away with.
What’s right is a higher bar.
Much of what holds this country together is restraint: the President having power, but choosing not to use it.
This is a lack of restraint with very little upside.
It was wrong when Obama’s White House tried to cut Fox News out of a press pool interview in 2009.
It’s also wrong now.
The issue isn’t actually playing favorites.
Every president plays favorites.
He picks who gets the interview. He picks who gets called on. He can be combative with some outlets in interviews and friendly to others.
That’s his time and his voice, and they’re his to give.
But a White House press pass is access to the building where the public’s business gets done.
Playing favorites determines who the president talks to.
A ban determines who gets to watch what happens in the center of power.
The media is called the 4th estate because it helps keep the government accountable through their mere presence.
They watch the politicians. That creates both the perception and reality of accountability.
The people being watched shouldn’t pick the watchers.
Furthermore, bans like this change the behavior of the reporters who get to stay in the room.
Once a negative story about the president can cost you your badge, every reporter still in the room is incentivized to pander to the president.
Nobody is being censored here - the media can say whatever they want.
But the ban is prejudicial instead of principled.
If “fiction and lies” is the standard, it applies to all media.
Fox paid Dominion $787 million over false election claims, and Fox still has its seat.
The line Trump drew isn’t truth vs lies - it’s pro-Trump vs anti-Trump.
Who decides what counts as fiction? How far from the truth do you have to drift to lose your badge?
Yes, the media is biased. Its low trust is earned.
We still need it.
You can sue a newsroom. You know who owns it. They have peer review. Reporters can’t hide behind anonymity.
Social media has none of that.
Its advantage is that it gives exposure to underexposed truths that the media isn’t covering.
But it also gives exposure to every lie and confused conspiracy theory too.
It takes me five to eight hours to make a three-minute video, and I still wonder if I got everything right.
Most people don’t have that time.
We need institutions that do.
If these outlets publish something false, sue them. Trump has, and has won multiple times.
If they lie, defeat them with the inexorable power of the truth.
Not prejudicial removal from the town square.
It’s also a stupid fight six weeks before the midterms.
We need vision, unity, and a case to be made for why Republicans should be trusted over the Democrats.
But instead Trump’s messaging is majoring in the minors.
Endless relitigation of the 2020 election.
Polls on renaming AI “Superior Intelligence” or “Supreme Intelligence” - like he’s currently doing on X.
This is not the message Americans need right now.
And think about the precedent.
What ground will the Right stand on when President Newsom or President AOC bans Fox?
The pendulum always comes back.
And it will be vicious.
The media is biased.
We still need it.
That leaves every reader with the same problem: how do you read biased coverage without letting it do your thinking for you?
Ground News has been my favorite news app for two years, since well before they ever sponsored me.
The feature I use most is Bias Comparison. It puts left, center and right coverage of the same story side by side, so bias turns into data you can see instead of distortion you absorb.
Here’s what it shows for the press ban.
284 sources. 36% of them lean left, 25% center, 39% right.
The facts are the same everywhere. The White House blocked CNN from its turn in the pool. The other networks, Fox included, refused to replace it. Three outlets sued.
Left-leaning outlets call the restrictions an “assault on the First Amendment” and call the networks’ response “solidarity.” Trump is the villain.
Right-leaning outlets call that same response “retaliation” by the “legacy media,” and report conservative outrage that Fox took part. The press is the villain.
Same facts. Opposite villains.
Then look at what each side emphasizes. Center and right coverage reports the White House’s stated reason: “fake news.” Left coverage plays it down.
If you only read the left, you might miss why Trump says he did it.
If you only read the right, the networks look like the aggressors.
Either way, you’d walk away with half the story and full confidence.
Media bias is a problem. The outlets aren’t going to fix it for you, and I can’t either.
What you can do is become the kind of reader bias doesn’t work on.
That’s mental sovereignty.
You see the spread before you pick a side. You notice what each outlet plays down. You reach your conclusions yourself, from the facts.
Ground News is the best tool I’ve found for building that habit.
It’s how you get the useful parts of the mainstream media, while retaining the ability to think for yourself.
You can get 40% off the Vantage plan, their top tier, at groundnews.com/kaizenx
Signing up keeps you informed, and it directly supports the work I do here.
2. Trump’s $5,000 promise
What happened
At the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Trump promised $5,000 to every adult citizen.
The condition: Republicans keep the House and Senate.
“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000.”
There are about 245 million adult citizens, so the bill is roughly $1.2 trillion.
It needs Congress to pass. Trump says it’s certain he will get it done.
This is the third check he’s floated. The $5,000 DOGE dividend and the $2,000 tariff dividend never arrived.
The camps
Supporters: the country is taking in money, and the people should share in it the way shareholders get a dividend.
Critics, including some conservatives: it’s a bribe, announced as the debt passed $40 trillion.
Election lawyers: it’s legal. A campaign promise like this is protected speech under a 1982 Supreme Court case.
My take
I’m not against the president putting money in Americans’ pockets.
Tax cuts do it.
Trump has floated abolishing the income tax and funding the government with tariffs, which is how Washington paid its bills before 1913.
Last December he sent $1,776 to about 1.45 million service members. (He credited tariffs. The money came from a housing allowance Congress had already approved.)
My issue is the condition and the math.
If there’s money to return to the people, it shouldn’t depend on which party wins an election.
It should exist because the system got better. You cut waste. There’s a windfall. You pass it on.
This is the reverse.
If Democrats win, does that mean Trump won’t try to deliver?
The payment is tied to a party and untied from results.
That’s a handout.
It’s the same pandering the right attacks in socialists:
“Here’s free stuff. We didn’t improve something to make it free. You just want it.”
And the number is arbitrary.
Zohran Mamdani promised groceries 30% cheaper at city-run stores. Why 30? Because food prices rose about 30% since 2019. The number matches the grievance. It has nothing to do with what a grocery store can sustain.
$5,000 is the same kind of number. It’s a marketing number.
$1.2 trillion is more than ten times what DOGE claims it saved.
The Tax Foundation says these checks would eat nearly all the new tariff revenue for a decade.
People call it a bribe. Legally it’s a campaign promise. In spirit the people calling it a bribe are right.
It’s a campaign to keep power - not the result of power being used effectively.
3. Macklemore, Robert Kraft and the word “genocide”
What happened
At Ed Sheeran’s MetLife Stadium shows on Sept. 4 and 5, Macklemore said “Free Palestine,” accused Israel of genocide, and showed images from Gaza.
Robert Kraft owns Gillette Stadium, a later stop on the tour. He barred Macklemore from playing there, called it hate speech, and cited a history of antisemitic rhetoric and imagery.
Macklemore says Kraft rallied other stadium owners into an ultimatum. Sheeran’s team dropped him on Sept. 14. Sheeran says venues threatened to pull the shows.
Four supporting acts quit in protest. Macklemore pledged $1 million from the tour to Palestinian aid. Kraft and Sheeran pledged $2 million each.
The camps
Kraft, the ADL and the Israeli-American Council: it’s a private venue with no duty to give him a stage. The ADL calls the genocide charge false and says he has a record of antisemitic rhetoric. Critics point to a 2014 costume widely read as a Jewish caricature. He apologized for it.
Macklemore’s side: it’s political speech, and a UN commission and human rights groups have made the same charge. A billionaire organizing venues to remove an artist is cancel culture.
Sheeran: there’s more than one way to work for peace. His critics say silence isn’t neutral.
My take
Whatever you think of what Macklemore said, saying it took courage.
He had something to lose. He lost it.
I respect courage as a virtue.
I also don’t see a free speech violation in banning Macklemore from stadiums for saying it.
The First Amendment protects you from the government.
Robert Kraft isn’t the government.
He owns the building, and he decides who plays in it.
Some platforms will drop Macklemore over this. Others will book him because of it.
Macklemore knew who owns the buildings he plays in.
Macklemore put the cause ahead of the business.
He’s free to do that. Kraft is free to respond the way he did. Other owners are free to follow. Fans are free to boycott Kraft’s venues.
Everyone is using their influence as they see fit.
On the claim itself, I think Macklemore is wrong.
Genocide means acting with intent to destroy a people. All war is evil.
But genocide is one of the highest degrees of evil there is.
He could have made a humanitarian statement about civilians dying in Gaza.
He could have called on Hamas and Israel’s government both to come to terms.
He chose the one word that accuses a government of trying to wipe out a people. It puts all the guilt on Israel and none on Hamas.
That’s a political claim. It makes sense that people who reject it won’t give it a stage.
I think it’s much more likely than not that Israel’s government - when considered as a whole - doesn’t have genocidal intent.
Some of its ministers say things that should be condemned. In June, Itamar Ben Gvir wrote that a thousand Lebanese mothers “must weep” for every Israeli mother’s tear.
Israel also cut off all aid to Gaza for eleven weeks last year.
But it warned civilians before strikes, and it let aid in for most of the war. I don’t think the conduct or the death toll shows an intent to destroy a people.
Reasonable people disagree. I may make the full case in another letter.
But both sides here are mindreading.
Macklemore is reading genocidal intent into Israel’s government.
Kraft and the ADL are reading antisemitism into Macklemore.
You can think he’s wrong, as I do.
Calling the statement antisemitic is a much harder case to prove, and it undercuts the rational case that this isn’t a genocide.
Someone can be confused and incorrect without hating Jews, hating Israel, or trafficking Jewish tropes for influence.
Maybe Macklemore is doing one of those things. We don’t know that.
But the best strategy to combat his claim is to refute what he said, not ascribe intent to who said it.
The woke movement made the same error when it called anyone saying anything that reflected poorly on black people racist.
My advice to the people who agree with me that this isn’t a genocide: drop the label. Focus on the logic.
Change people’s minds. Don’t tell them they’re hateful for what’s on their minds.
Macklemore is wrong.
Kraft is within his rights.
Calling it antisemitism is a strategic error.
From here, you’ll learn:
How a sealed jury list failed to protect the Clancy holdout, and who handed the public the clues.
The case for and against the juror now being picked apart online.
Why a watched jury is a different jury.
What happens to civic duty when every juror has an audience.
