Contrary to Evidence, Trump Energy Secretary Says Data Centers Are Best Tool to ‘Stop the Rise of Electricity Prices’

His comments came one day after the largest power grid in the US announced massive rate hikes and said the “primary driver of that growth is data centers.”


US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, speaks about nuclear energy on-stage during an event in Idaho Falls, Idaho, on June 25, 2026.
(Photo by Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)

Stephen Prager
Jul 15, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

After New York’s Democratic governor enacted a temporary ban on the construction of large data centers to curb their enormous power consumption, President Donald Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, made the evidence-free claim that the facilities are actually the “greatest tool” for reducing the sharp increases in energy prices.

On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order barring for one year the construction of “hyperscale” data centers that can consume 50 megawatts of power or more, saying that unchecked expansion “threatens to hike up utility bills, deplete our natural resources, and create uncertainty for New Yorkers.”

New York was the first state to place a moratorium on data center development, and more than a dozen other states have considered enacting moratoriums as evidence has mounted that data centers tend to spike power demand and drive up costs.

But as the rapid growth of data centers has sparked furious backlash in communities of all political stripes, the industry has maintained a steadfast ally in the Trump administration, which has continued to champion rapid data center buildout by fast-tracking permits, opening federal land to developers, promoting new energy infrastructure, and offering federal financing and tax incentives to new projects.




On Wednesday morning, Wright took to Fox News to blast Hochul’s block on data center development.

“Gov. Hochul has it exactly backward,” he said. “Data centers are the greatest tool we have right now to stop the rise of electricity prices and ultimately to bring them back down.”

Wright, a former fracking executive, protested that “Democrat green energy policies” were responsible for driving up energy prices in New York, pointing to its ban on fracking, the blocking of a major natural gas pipeline, and an “insane climate law” requiring the state to transition away from fossil fuels by 2040.

“Energy is extremely expensive in New York and now sparse because of bad Democrat policies,” he said. “Nothing to do with data centers.”

Wright did not elaborate on how exactly data centers could be used as a “tool” to bring down energy prices. But if this is the case, nobody has informed the energy companies themselves.

His comments came just a day after PJM, which serves 67 million customers and is the nation’s largest electric grid operator, released the results of an electricity auction that added $6.3 billion in costs to consumers’ energy bills in 2028-29 due to growth in energy demand.

“The primary driver of that growth is data centers,” the company said in a press release. “New data center facilities and expansions of existing sites can be developed quickly, up to two to three times faster than many of the electricity generation technologies that are necessary to serve them and allow PJM to maintain the reliability customers expect.”

That increase is not confined to the future. It has already begun. According to Monitoring Analytics, PJM’s independent market monitor, since 2024, the auctions have added $29 billion in costs to the customers across the 13 states plus Washington, DC, where it operates. New York is not one of the states supplied by the PJM grid.

The Natural Resources Defense Council has found that recent PJM auction increases have added as much as $20-30 to monthly bills in some parts of the company’s regions, and projects that continued data-center growth could eventually add roughly $70 per month for an average household.

The labor-focused media organization More Perfect Union, which has published many pieces documenting the effects of data centers on American communities, called Wright’s claim “one of the most blatant lies we’ve ever heard.”

“Data centers are pushing energy prices up,” the outlet said. “That is not a matter of debate, it’s a fact.”

Senate Urged to Reject Trump Plot to Unleash AI for Medicare Service Denials

“The bottom line is this: Seniors who choose traditional Medicare should not have their care blocked by AI,” said one campaigner.


Brett Wilkins
Jul 15, 2026

COMMON DREAMS


Advocates for seniors on Wednesday urged US senators to vote for a resolution that, if passed, would block a new Trump administration pilot program under which claims by patients seeking certain healthcare services through traditional Medicare would be reviewed by private companies using artificial intelligence to deny care.

Upper chamber lawmakers are set to vote Thursday on a resolution introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and supported by 20 Democratic colleagues and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to stop the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ so-called Wasteful and Inappropriate Service Reduction (WISeR) Model.

CMS claims WISeR “helps protect American taxpayers by leveraging enhanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, along with human clinical review, to ensure timely and appropriate Medicare payment for select items and services.”

What CMS doesn’t mention—and what alarms a growing number of physicians and advocates—about the voluntary model is that AI-assisted reviews could contribute to inappropriate care denials, despite the required human review. Private Medicare Advantage healthcare profiteers have been using AI to deny care for years.

Critics argue that, even if a human must sign off, AI will effectively drive many of the recommendations, making it easier and faster to deny or delay care. They also warn of inevitable financial incentives tied to reducing Medicare spending, raising concerns that AI would likely be used as a cost-cutting tool.

“WISeR is not wise at all. It is a dangerous, profit-motivated experiment that allows private third parties to use artificial intelligence to delay and deny seniors’ medical care,” Social Security Works executive director Alex Lawson said Wednesday. “Under the WISeR pilot program, which went live in January 2026, reports already show Medicare beneficiaries are waiting 2 to 4 times longer to access certain care.”

“This is just one more example of the harm that Republicans’ disastrous healthcare agenda has already waged on American patients,” he continued. “Last year, Republicans slashed $1 trillion in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act spending to line their cronies’ pockets. Now, they are importing the worst parts of Medicare Advantage—automated care denials—into traditional Medicare.”

“The bottom line is this: Seniors who choose traditional Medicare should not have their care blocked by AI,” Lawson added.

FCC Chair Ripped Over ‘Unlawful’ Plan to Hand ‘Public Airwaves to Billionaire Buddies’ of Trump

The lone Democrat on the FCC said Brendan Carr’s plan would “destroy local newsrooms, silence community reporting, and drive-up costs for the American families.”

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr speaks at a news conference on February 18, 2026 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Jake Johnson
Jul 15, 2026
COMMON DREAMS

Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr announced Wednesday that his agency will soon vote to repeal a decades-old rule aimed at limiting consolidation among television broadcasters, a move that press freedom organizations say would be disastrous for journalism and American democracy.

Carr, a loyalist of President Donald Trump, outlined his proposal in an op-ed for the far-right online publication Breitbart, claiming his plan would “restore balance to the broadcast airwaves.” But Anna Gomez, the lone Democratic FCC commissioner, warned in a fiery statement that “this unlawful effort to hand control of the public airwaves to billionaire buddies of this administration will destroy local newsrooms, silence community reporting, and drive-up costs for the American families who depend on local stations for news and emergency alerts.”

Carr said the FCC will vote on August 6 on his proposal to eliminate a rule barring any single TV broadcaster from reaching more than 39% of US households—a limit designed to constrain television conglomerates. The FCC, which has a two-to-one Republican majority, is likely to approve the plan.

But Gomez argued in her statement on Wednesday that Carr’s proposal is illegal, noting that “Congress wrote that specific [39%] number into federal law in 2004, and it did so on purpose.”

“This is not the first time the FCC has tried to move on this issue,” said Gomez. “In 2003, the commission raised the cap to 45% under its own authority. Congress stepped in within months, rewrote the law to set the cap at 39%, and made clear the FCC did not have the authority to change it. An FCC vote to raise the cap now would be unlawful, as it would mean doing the exact thing Congress has already said the commission cannot do.”

Politico noted that Carr’s proposal “marks a likely victory for the National Association of Broadcasters and its members such as Nexstar and Sinclair, which would be freer to pursue mergers that would breach the cap.”

Earlier this year, the FCC approved Nexstar’s $6.2 billion acquisition of rival TV company Tegna. A federal judge blocked the merger deal in April pending resolution of a legal challenge. If the merger is finalized, the new media conglomerate would reach roughly 80% of US households, blowing past the statutory 39% limit that Carr is now working to remove.

“Just as the FCC had no power to waive a congressional statute to grease the skids for Nexstar’s merger with Tegna, it has no power now to completely obliterate the limit Congress set,” Matt Wood, vice president of policy and general counsel at Free Press, said in a statement on Wednesday. “The national cap remains good policy. It promotes competition, localism, and diversity in broadcasting, incentivizing stations to preserve local newsrooms and local-journalism jobs instead of duplicating stories nationwide and passing that off as local news.”

“But whatever the law’s merits may be,” Wood added, “the key point is that Brendan Carr cannot undo the limit that Congress set just because he feels like it.”

Trump admits he's involved in the Foxification of CNN: Jim Acosta

Host Jim Acosta (Photo: Screen capture)

Sarah K. Burris

July 15, 2026 

ALTERNET

Former CNN host and White House correspondent Jim Acosta took a dig at his former employer after they featured President Donald Trump in an interview earlier this week.

One of the things Trump said in passing to host Jake Tapper was, “We’re trying to have CNN go on a normal path.”

It was a reference to Trump allies Larry and David Ellison taking over Time/Warner, the parent company of CNN.

Acosta honed in on the idea of Trump saying the word "We're."

"He went on CNN, and he sort of tipped his hand a little bit, it seemed to me, right on national television, where he almost said that he’s a part of creating this new Paramount WB merger — This new merger between CBS [Paramount] and CNN," Acosta said, playing Trump's comments.

A group of attorneys general has lined up to fight back against the merger of the Ellisons' Paramount and Time/Warner. Acosta spoke with California Attorney General Rob Bonta about the takeover bid and Trump's relationship with the Ellisons.

Bonta agreed that Trump showed his hand in the interview. It made him wonder if the "we" in this case was Trump and the Ellisons or if it was Trump and someone else.

A major part of the case from the AGs addresses the path that networks have taken in bowing down to him with compliments and agreements.

"Instead of doing what a news organization should do, be independent, free thinking, be honest, be hard-hitting, hold the powerful accountable, tell the truth, seek the truth, and give different perspectives so that the American people can decide for themselves," Bonta said.

The admission made it sound like Trump is deeply involved in the merger, Acosta found.

"They’ll try to refer to the federal government’s, quote-unquote, approval of this merger as something in their favor, and it’s just a president helping a friend," Bonta said. "There was no antitrust analysis that was legitimate or done in good faith completed here."

Acosta has stayed largely above the fray on his old employer, other than to needle commentator and "whiner" Scott Jennings.

Speaking with Nicolle Wallace for her video/podcast, Acosta made it clear that he thinks Bari Weiss, editor-in-chief at CBS News will "murder CNN" when the merger goes through.

Acosta bashed what CBS News has become, "a clown show" that "nobody wants to watch."

CBS has suffered a significant ratings hit after the merger, losing 20 percent in total viewers as well as the key 25-54 demographic since late last year before the takeover. CBS Evening News has dropped to below 4 million viewers, which is a slump that began when it put Tony Dokoupil in as the host. CBS Mornings has also lost about 1.6 million total viewers in the coveted 25-54 demographic.

CNN has seen gains over the past few months when measured across all its platforms. It's been the best since the 2024 election coverage. It's unclear when the shift will happen at CNN with the Ellison takeover.

The Paramount-Warner Merger Would Give the Trumpers Even More Control of the Media

The merger would allow Paramount to merge CBS’ newsroom with Warner-owned CNN, which would presumably mean arch-Trumper Bari Weiss would be in charge of CNN.


Oracle co-founder, CTO, and Executive Chairman Larry Ellison is accompanied by US President Donald Trump in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on January 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.
(Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

Dean Baker
Jul 15, 2026

Beat the Press

Until a couple of months ago, we could get a dose of humor to help us get through the craziness, cruelty, and corruption of the Trump administration. But CBS pulled Stephen Colbert off the air, and not because of bad ratings—he had by far the most widely viewed network show at that hour.

The problem was President Donald Trump is too thin-skinned to put up with a comedian poking fun at him regularly. As a result, he had Brendan Carr, his chair of the Federal Communications Commission, imply that the Ellison family’s effort to take over Paramount, CBS’ parent company, would be blocked if Colbert wasn’t fired. The Elliot family includes prominent Trumper Larry Ellison, one of the richest people in the world, and David Ellison, his equally right-wing son who most immediately controls Paramount.


‘No One Is Above the Law’: 12 States Sue to Block Paramount-Warner Bros. Merger


But taking over one of the country’s major broadcast networks wasn’t enough for the Ellisons. They also control TikTok, the fifth most widely used social media platform, which Trump wrestled away from a Chinese company and put in Larry Ellison’s hands.

And now, Paramount is looking to take over Warner Brothers. In addition to giving them control over two major Hollywood studios, the merger would allow Paramount to merge CBS’ newsroom with Warner-owned CNN. This would presumably mean arch-Trumper Bari Weiss would be in charge of CNN.

Stories about the upward redistribution of income over the last half-century, and anti-worker practices by businesses, tend to get short shrift. But there is no doubt they would get even less attention in a Trumper-controlled media universe.

David Ellison put Weiss, who has long-established right-wing credentials, in charge of CBS News soon after taking over the network. In this role, she has already fired or driven away many serious reporters and repeatedly censored “60 Minutes,” its highly regarded and widely watched investigative news show. We can expect more of the same at CNN if Paramount’s takeover of Warner is allowed to go through.

While Trump’s Justice Department’s antitrust division has green-lighted the Paramount-Warner merger, there is still a possibility it can be stopped. California and 11 other states sued to stop the merger on antitrust grounds. In addition to merging two of the major news networks, it would also consolidate two massive Hollywood studios.

An analysis by the Media and Consolidation Research Organization Lab at the University of California San Diego found that the resulting reduction in competition would almost certainly mean fewer new movies are produced and less employment in the industry. It also would likely mean higher streaming prices for consumers. This is in addition to the problem of giving Trumpers even more control of the media.

There is at least some chance that the courts will block this merger on the merits. However, if it goes through the appellate process, the Republican Supreme Court may find the opportunity to provide another gift to Trump supporters irresistible. Still, the prospect of a years-long delay could persuade Paramount to compromise and offer at least partial divestment of some of Warner Brothers holdings to facilitate the merger. In any case, the antitrust lawsuit raises the possibility of blocking the merger in its current form.

While further consolidation of the media and placing ever more of it in the hands of Trumpers is definitely bad news, it would be wrong to imagine that we previously had a golden age of media. News outlets owned and run by rich people tend to present news in a manner that is acceptable to the bosses. Stories about the upward redistribution of income over the last half-century, and anti-worker practices by businesses, tend to get short shrift. But there is no doubt they would get even less attention in a Trumper-controlled media universe.

However, we should be looking for something better. One route is a system of individual tax credits, say $100 per person, to support a person’s favorite news outlet(s). This would be a credit, not a deduction, and fully refundable, so even the poorest person would get a $100 to support the news outlet of their choice.

The model is the tax deduction for charitable contributions, except that everyone would get the same amount. There are many design issues that would have to be ironed out, but such a system could create a large pool of money to support news reporting in various forms that is not controlled by rich people.

This system also has the advantage that it can be done at the state or even local level. That means that cities run by progressives, like New York and Seattle, could pave the way by putting this sort of system in place. (Seattle’s new mayor, Katie Wilson, is a big supporter of this sort of system.)

It is hugely important to do what we can to block further consolidation of the media in the hands of the Trumpers. We also need to do other things, like reforming Section 230 to take away the special protection it gives the huge social media platforms. But the most important longer-term measure to protect a free press is to set up an alternative funding mechanism. An individual tax credit system is a promising route, but we need to get these alternatives on the table and start moving forward with them.

Writers union sues to block US Paramount deal

AFP
July 14, 2026

Le logo du studio hollywoodien Warner Bros Discovery à Culver City, le 5 décembre 2025 en Californie – Copyright AFP/File Patrick T. Fallon

The Writers Guild of America (WGA) filed a lawsuit Tuesday to block Paramount Skydance’s proposed takeover of Hollywood studio Warner Bros. Discovery, arguing the $110 billion acquisition would violate federal antitrust law and harm writers.

This latest hurdle comes a day after California and 11 other states launched separate suits to block the merger.

With Tuesday’s lawsuit, one of Hollywood’s powerful labor unions hopes to undo the US Department of Justice’s approval.

Many fear the merger will result in massive job cuts in an industry that has been under siege from consolidations and layoffs.

“The proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. merger threatens the economic and creative health of the American entertainment industry,” the WGA complaint said, adding the merger “would eliminate competition for buying film and television writing, resulting in suppressed compensation, worse deal terms, and reduced programming volume and diversity.”

The owners of Paramount Skydance, the Ellison family, are close to US President Donald Trump and the deal would give them control of CBS News and CNN, along with film studios Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros., and streaming platforms Paramount+ and HBO Max.

“With fewer competitors, the merged Paramount-Warner Bros. entity would have both the incentive and the ability to lower costs by suppressing writers’ wages and reducing output. Writers will be paid less and have fewer employment opportunities,” the Writers Guild said in its complaint.

Paramount engaged in a bidding war against Netflix to land Warner Bros., and argues the deal will create a strong rival to Netflix, Amazon and Apple.

To win support, the conglomerate has pledged to release at least 30 films a year that will remain in theaters for a minimum of 45 days.

The US legal proceedings are being watched in the United Kingdom and European Union, where regulators have yet to approve the deal.

rfo/sla/tc

Red state courts Trump-allied Hollywood giant looking to flee California: reports

Bennito L. Kelty
July 14, 2026 

RAW STORY

The Warner Bros. Water Tower is pictured at Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank on the day it was announced that California and 11 states are suing to block Paramount's $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery in California, U.S. July 13, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Cole

A red state is capitalizing on a major Hollywood studio's rift with California over a Trump-backed merger, per reports.

According to a Tuesday article by The Hollywood Reporter, Tennessee is courting Paramount Skydance as it sets its sights on a new home. Paramount Skydance has threatened to leave California after a coalition of a dozen attorneys general filed a lawsuit to block a $111 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. The Trump Department of Justice greenlit the merger earlier this year.

The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development sent a letter on July 2 to Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison, in which it tried to woo the Trump-allied chairman.

"Congratulations on this remarkable new chapter for Paramount Skydance. Few leaders have the opportunity to redefine an iconic company while simultaneously shaping the future of an industry," reads the letter, signed by Tennessee Deputy Governor Stuart McWhorter. "As you look ahead, I encourage you to consider Tennessee as the home for that future."

The Hollywood Reporter noted that Ellison used to live on and off in Tennessee for 11 years from 2014 to 2025. The Reporter added that Oracle, the tech company owned by Larry Ellison, plans on building a massive campus in Nashville, and Clay Magouyrk, the co-CEO of Oracle, lives in Tennessee.

Warner Bros. Discovery also used to maintain an office complex in Knoxville after a 2017 Scripps Network deal. Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of the historic Hollywood studio, sold the property in 2023, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

"Tennessee offers a compelling proposition: a state where creativity and technology converge, where talent is developed intentionally, and where innovation is embraced," the letter promised.

Busted: Paramount gave FCC officials gifts while seeking approval for billion-dollar deal

Corey G. Johnson,

 Pro Publica 

July 15, 2026

The rich and famous who filed into the Kennedy Center’s opera house in December were there to enjoy one of the nation’s most exclusive celebrations of the performing arts: the center’s annual honors gala.

The black-tie event, hosted by President Donald Trump, prioritized tickets to people who donated more than $75,000 to the center. This year, it feted Hollywood icon Sylvester Stallone, the legendary glam rock band Kiss and the Grammy Award-winning disco pioneer Gloria Gaynor.

Among the attendees that evening were two lower-profile government officials whose regulatory decisions had been crucial to the future of the gala’s broadcast sponsor, CBS, and its parent company, Paramount.


Five months earlier, Federal Communications Commissioner Olivia Trusty cast a decisive vote approving Paramount’s historic $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. Now, the commissioner and a guest enjoyed the star-studded celebration thanks to tickets gifted to her by Paramount worth more than $12,000, according to ethics disclosure records obtained by ProPublica.

The other commissioner who approved the merger watched from a prized perch. FCC Chair Brendan Carr and his wife sat in a private skybox with Paramount CEO David Ellison and other executives from Paramount and CBS. Such seats sold for $125,000 a ticket, according to Kennedy Center guidelines.


It’s unclear if Paramount gifted Carr the premium seats because the FCC has yet to make public his financial disclosure for last year.

However, past disclosures show Carr and Trusty are among seven FCC commissioners who have accepted Kennedy gala tickets from CBS or its parent company over the last decade. Ethics experts told ProPublica this poses a blatant conflict of interest since the commission regulates the network. Carr’s previous financial statements show he has accepted tickets at least seven times since his 2017 appointment, totaling over $63,000 in gifts.

Last December’s ceremony attended by Trusty and Carr took place as Paramount was launching a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, a move that would later result in a merger agreement that requires FCC approval.


Federal ethics rules ban employees from taking gifts from any entity that does business with, is regulated by or seeks official action from their agency.

Four ethics experts told ProPublica that by accepting the premium tickets Trusty and Carr compromised the FCC’s impartiality and should not take part in any upcoming decision on the merger.

“There’s no way that any top federal regulator should ever, ever accept a gift from a regulated company with interests their work will foreseeably affect,” said Walter Shaub, who led the federal Office of Government Ethics from 2013 to 2017. “The appearance of taking gifts like that is terrible. What’s at stake is nothing less than the public’s trust in government.”


Virginia Canter, who served as an ethics lawyer at the White House, Treasury Department, and Securities and Exchange Commission during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said the commissioners who accepted tickets cannot participate in this matter without damaging the integrity of the government’s decision-making process.

“This is shocking. Pretty disturbing, that’s what I would say. I just don’t understand what they were thinking,” said Canter, who now works as chief counsel for ethics and corruption at the nonpartisan government watchdog group Democracy Defenders Fund.

The FCC’s review of the merger is one of the final hurdles facing a historic $110 billion consolidation of two of the five largest film studios in Hollywood. The deal would unite Paramount Skydance with Warner Bros., bringing under the control of one company Paramount+ and HBO Max streaming services; CBS and CNN; and scores of other major broadcast channels, cable networks, and digital platforms.

The new megacorporation, which could reshape how millions will access news, movies, sports and video games, faces fierce opposition from inside and outside Hollywood. More than 5,000 actors, producers and entertainment workers — including stars such as Robert De Niro, Javier Bardem, Joaquin Phoenix and Glenn Close — signed an open letter decrying how the consolidation would eliminate jobs and compromise “the integrity, independence, and diversity of our industry.”


On Monday, California, New York and 10 other Democratic states filed a lawsuit seeking to block the merger under federal and state anti-monopoly laws.

American and international regulators are evaluating the deal for its potential national security implications and impacts to consumers worldwide. Last week, the British government signaled it planned to investigate whether the new entertainment titan that would emerge from the union would unfairly stifle competition. The FCC’s ongoing review includes examining the Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds backing the deal, including from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The FCC usually has five commissioners — all appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to serve five-year terms — but the agency currently has only three. Any vote by the full commission would likely be decided by Republicans Carr and Trusty over Democrat Anna Gomez. Gomez was not at the December 2025 show but has accepted tickets from Paramount in the past. Because the FCC requires a three-commissioner quorum for a vote, any recusal could leave the panel unable to decide on the merger. Carr could decide to ask staff to approve the deal rather than bring it to a commission vote, but the ethics experts said he should recuse himself from any decisions affecting the Paramount merger.

The experts warned the commissioners’ gifts might become central in legal challenges and said the Justice Department should investigate potential violations of federal rules or laws.


Neither Carr nor Trusty responded to ProPublica’s requests for comment. Gomez said in a statement that she followed agency advice when she attended the event in 2023 and 2024. Her statement did not elaborate or otherwise address why taking gifts from Paramount did not pose a conflict of interest.

An FCC spokesperson said agency ethics officers have for years cleared commissioner appearances, finding it consistent with ethics law.

“FCC Chairs and officials have attended the same event, in the same ways, consistently from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration to the Obama Administration,” the FCC said in a statement. “There has been no change in recent years.”

Shaub called the justification outrageous.


“It’s no excuse to say that you took the gift because everyone else was doing it or that your agency has had a bad habit of indulging in gift taking for a long time,” Shaub said. “That kind of explanation doesn’t work for school children, and it sure as hell doesn’t work for government officials who are supposed to have better judgment than a fifth grader.”

Despite their oversight role, FCC members have long enjoyed a night out at the Kennedy Center courtesy of CBS or its parent company. Seven of the 10 commissioners who served since 2016 accepted tickets worth more than $260,000, according to a ProPublica analysis of ethics disclosures.

Carr’s predecessor, Jessica Rosenworcel, who was appointed FCC chair by President Joe Biden and stepped down in January 2025, attended regularly.

Rosenworcel and several other former commissioners who accepted the tickets did not respond to requests for comment. The one commissioner who didn’t accept a single gift, Nathan Simington, said he received the Kennedy Center invites from CBS and Paramount but turned them down because it “wasn’t my cup of tea.”

A review of 10 years of disclosures shows commissioners accepted paid trips from various sponsors to appear at banquets and speak at conferences. Some of those gifts came from other media companies regulated by the FCC. NBCUniversal, ABC-Disney and Fox News, for instance, paid for commissioners to attend White House Correspondents’ Association dinners, records show. The total value of the combined gifts topped $308,000. But the vast majority came from CBS and its parent company.

Melissa Zukerman, Paramount’s chief communications officer, said it was a decades-long “CBS practice to invite government officials from both parties” to the Kennedy Center show. She didn’t address why the practice continued after new ownership took over last year, the purpose of the gifts or whether the tickets posed a conflict of interest.

Carr, who joined the FCC as a staffer in 2012 and rose to become the agency’s general counsel, was appointed to serve as a commissioner by Trump during his first term. Since then, Carr has accepted tickets annually, except when the 2020 event was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to his public disclosures.

Carr did not respond to an email request from ProPublica for his latest ethics report, which would indicate whether Paramount also paid for him to attend last December’s gala. The FCC referred us to the Office of Government Ethics, which told us that the FCC had not yet provided the disclosure. The FCC did not respond to our subsequent requests for the record.

A 2009 Office of Government Ethics memo gave federal employees the right to attend Kennedy Center events but explicitly said officials cannot accept free attendance “offered by persons other than the Kennedy Center and its trustees, officers and employees.” In 2016, the ethics office tightened its gift requirements, warning officials to avoid any appearance “of loss of impartiality.”

There is an exemption to the gift rules that allows free entry to gatherings that are widely attended and paid for by third parties, but only if certain conditions are met.

The event must “further agency programs or operations,” and the agency’s interest in an official attending must outweigh “concern that the employee may be, or may appear to be, improperly influenced in the performance of official duties,” according to the federal rules.

As an example, the Office of Government Ethics said an industry-wide seminar attended by more than 100 people could be allowed if the employee’s participation would be in the agency’s interest. But those attending should “represent a range of persons interested in a given matter” and the event must provide a “structured opportunity” to exchange ideas and views among invitees.

The office clarified in a 2007 memo that performing arts presentations would not count even if they, like the honors gala, have a reception before or afterward at which officials can mingle with other attendees.

Canter, the former White House ethics lawyer, said it would be a “stretch” for the FCC to argue the exemptions apply to the Kennedy Center’s annual show, where famous musicians perform and celebrities laud those who are being honored. “It’s not what we would consider a widely attended gathering,” she said.

Kedric Payne, general counsel and senior director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group, noted that federal rules also require agencies to weigh the market value of the attendance, its relevance to the agency, any sensitive pending matters involving the donor and whether accepting free tickets creates an appearance of preferential treatment.

“The ethics rules are designed to prevent this exact situation,” he said, adding that it is an “obvious conflict of interest” for an official to “accept expensive gifts from anyone with decisions pending before the agency. This matters because it makes the public question whether official decisions are free from the improper influence of wealthy special interests.”

An FCC official familiar with the legal guidance given to the commissioners said they were told the event met the criteria for the “widely attended gathering” exception. (The source was not authorized to talk publicly about agency legal discussions.)

Shaub, the former Office of Government Ethics head, disagreed, saying it would be “hard to understand what compelling interest the FCC could think it had in letting its commissioners” attend the gala.

“What possible reason could have outweighed the obvious ethics concerns?” he asked.

Federal rules require written authorization for an official to accept free entry to a widely attended gathering. The FCC did not respond to our requests to provide the authorizations for the Paramount tickets or say who authorized them. Two senior ethics officials at the agency, Kathleen Fulp and Lauren Northrop, did not respond to requests for comment.

While December’s event came at a particularly sensitive time for Paramount and the FCC, it wasn’t the first.

More than a year earlier, in September 2024, Paramount had filed paperwork seeking the commission’s approval for its merger with Skydance Media. A month later, the FCC launched an investigation of CBS after a conservative group complained about a “60 Minutes” interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Trump later filed a lawsuit alleging the network deceptively edited the interview — an accusation CBS denied.

Then in November, less than two weeks after his election victory, Trump declared he would appoint Carr as FCC chair. Almost immediately, Carr accused CBS of biased election coverage and said it would be an obstacle to approving the Paramount-Skydance merger.

That December, Carr and three other commissioners — Rosenworcel, Gomez and Geoffrey Starks — accepted Kennedy Center gala tickets from Paramount worth a combined $48,156.

On Jan. 16, 2025, just days before Rosenworcel stepped down from the commission, she announced the agency was dismissing the election complaint against CBS. She and Gomez called the outcome a victory for the First Amendment.

But days later, Carr, the incoming FCC chair, reopened the investigation.

To resolve Trump’s lawsuit, CBS agreed to pay the president $16 million, a decision criticized by legal experts who decried Trump’s claims as baseless.

Two days after Trump posted on social media that he had received the settlement money, the FCC took up the Paramount-Skydance merger. To meet Carr’s demands, Paramount agreed to appoint an independent ombudsperson who would evaluate claims of bias. The company also pledged to eliminate its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

By then, Starks and Simington had unexpectedly stepped down from the commission. Trusty, a Trump appointee, had been confirmed by the Senate the previous month.

Trusty and Carr voted in favor of the merger. Gomez voted against, blasting the approval for requiring “never-before-seen forms of government control over newsroom decisions and editorial judgment.”

Experts said that while Trusty had no conflict yet, Carr and Gomez did. The fact that Gomez voted against Paramount did not mean she didn’t face a conflict under the rules, Shaub said.

Federal rules only require those who accept improper gifts to make a prompt reimbursement, but Shaub and the other experts said Carr and Gomez should have abstained from the vote.

“If you repay the face value of the ticket, the gift rules don’t require you to recuse — though common sense and any kind of conscience might lead you to recuse voluntarily for the good of the country,” Shaub said. “But if you refuse to repay the donor, I don’t see how anything short of recusal could remotely remediate the problem.”

With the Paramount-Skydance merger greenlit by the FCC, Ellison, the new company’s CEO, then set his sights on acquiring Warner Bros. Discovery.

Warner at first rebuffed Paramount’s overtures and on Dec. 5 — two days before the Kennedy Center gala — accepted a bid from Netflix to buy its studio and streaming assets. Ellison responded by making numerous calls to administration officials and had a long talk with Trump, according to The Wall Street Journal.

On the night of the gala, Trump told reporters the Netflix deal “could be a problem” and that he planned to get directly involved with the regulatory approval. Inside the Kennedy Center, Carr and his wife sat with Ellison in an exclusive skybox, Bloomberg reported. (Gomez said in her statement to ProPublica that she declined Paramount’s “invitation because of serious concerns about press independence connected to conditions Paramount agreed to as part of its merger transaction before the FCC.”)

Hours after the gala ended, Paramount announced it was launching its hostile takeover bid of Warner Bros. Discovery.

About three months later, Carr publicly endorsed Paramount over Netflix on CNBC, promising swift approval.

If one or more commissioners choose to abstain from a merger vote because of ethical concerns, what would happen next is unclear. Under federal conflict of interest rules, an agency designee could theoretically permit commissioners to vote after considering several factors, including “the difficulty of reassigning the matter,” the nature of the relationship between the commissioners and Paramount, and the “effect that resolution of the matter would have upon the financial interests” of the firm.

Carr could bypass a full commission vote entirely, as he did with the recent acquisition of Tegna by Nexstar Media Group. In that case, Carr delegated authority to FCC staff to approve the takeover.

But any decision on the Paramount deal — whether by the full commission or by staff at the direction of the chair — is likely to be challenged.

Richard Painter, a former White House ethics attorney in the administration of George W. Bush, said while courts often defer to the government’s judgment, they also can become skeptical if a regulatory agency is shown to have violated ethics rules.

“A judge may very well say that the merger decision of the FCC isn’t worth jack because the process was corrupted,” he said.

Sen. Graham’s Legacy: He Helped Israel Get Away With Genocide

Lindsey Graham is part of the answer to the question of how a genocide could be pursued in plain sight with impunity.

US Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks during a press conference on August 28, 2025 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
(Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images)

Juan Cole
Jul 15, 2026

Informed Comment

The sudden death of South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, 71, has been greeted with the full spectrum of reactions. Many of them were personal in character. I never met or testified before Sen. Graham, and I’m not under the illusion that the persona politicians project on television gives much insight into them as persons. This maxim is especially true for a politician, who typically tacks with the wind, as Graham often did. Nor is my interest here personal. People depict him as a nice guy to colleagues who was capable of praising rivals such as Joe Biden. That sort of senatorial bonhomie is irrelevant to the issue I want to address.

Genocides in the past 50 years have not always been easy to recognize in real time. The Khmer Rouge polished off a fifth of Cambodia’s population, but isolated journalistic reports of what was going on were dismissed in Washington. Likewise, the Clinton administration was slow to understand the mass killings in Rwanda.

It was not until April 23, 2005, that the first video was successfully posted to the World Wide Web. It was that breakthrough that made the Gaza genocide that began in October 2023 the first televised such mass atrocity. The Israeli policy of systematic killing of innocent noncombatants was live-streamed on smartphones on a daily basis throughout the world. There was no doubt about what we were seeing.

And yet, the Israeli leadership has suffered almost no repercussions for having disregarded the value of civilian life, adopting a monstrous Rules of Engagement allowing for as many as a hundred women, children, and noncombatant men to be killed for each militant targeted. NATO has ceased joint military exercises with Israel because its army violated its RoE so egregiously.

We have to revise the old saying. If you have neither the law nor the facts on your side, pound racist superiority and inherent lack of accountability.

Lindsey Graham is part of the answer to the question of how a genocide could be pursued in plain sight with impunity.

When the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, prepared in April 2024 to apply for arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity, former Prime Minister David Cameron shouted angrily at him that Britain would withdraw from and defund the ICC if the indictment went forward. Cameron was not in office at that time, and may have been used by the Tory government to express its displeasure without intervening officially. Labour promised to do better when it came back to power. It didn’t.

There is an old adage among lawyers: “If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither, pound the table.”

Israel’s lawyers, like Cameron and the Conservative Party in general, had neither the facts nor the law on their side, so they pounded the table. In fact, they threatened to dismantle the judge’s bench, strip his clothing off, and shoot him in the head.

Sen. Graham then joined a conference call with Khan in April, 2024, in which he lambasted the prosecutor, saying that ICC indictments are for “Africa and thugs like Putin,” not for the United States and its allies such as Israel.

If Khan’s report of this conversation is correct, it casts the late senator in an extremely poor light. It is hard to see the reference to Africa as anything but racism.

South Carolina had for centuries had one law for white people and another one for African Americans, who were kidnapped in Africa and brought to the lowcountry. Until 1863 they were held as chattel, property rather than persons. After a brief period of emancipation, they were gradually denied the right to vote or hold office, until the mid-1960s Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. The point of the Trump administration, of which Graham became a pillar, is to repeal those laws and to again disenfranchise African Americans, with outrageous racial gerrymanders and measures such as limiting the number of polling stations in heavily African American districts.

While it is controversial whether Graham was personally a racist, what he said about the ICC being for Africans was certainly a racist comment, and it unfortunately replicated the long history of white sentiment in South Carolina that some laws do not pertain to white people, which is a way of saying that whites have impunity. He clearly coded Israelis as “white.” Such categorizations are worthless and arbitrary, however. Whiteness has no stable meaning. Most Israelis couldn’t have gotten served at a diner in South Carolina in the 1950s, though. What is important is that Graham so categorized them, and the significance he attached to that categorization.

That he threw Putin (and who could be more pasty?) into the mix might tell against this analysis. Yet obviously even under slavery and Jim Crow there were white criminals who harmed propertied white gentry and who did not share in impunity as a result. An example was Ian Gale, the cat burglar who robbed a hundred homes of valuables totaling as much as half a million dollars. Putin became a “thug” by attacking other white people in Ukraine, and so deserves to be dealt with as though he were an African.

It is still a racist comment.

Graham’s angry attack on Khan showed the Nixonian logic of genocide denial. It isn’t a crime if the United States or Israel does it.

Ironically, Graham was a law school graduate and served in the US Air Force Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps for more than 30 years while in the Air National Guard and Reserves. He rose to hold the rank of colonel.

The JAG Corps of the Air Force admitted in 2020, “The statistics show that black male Airmen under the age of 25 and with less than 5 years of service receive NJP [nonjudicial punishment] and courts-martial actions at a higher rate than similarly situated white male Airmen.”

You give the white guy a break but throw the book at the Black guy. That was how Graham’s second institution often behaved during the decades he served in it. While for some JAG officers, this outcome may have resulted from an unconscious prejudice, Sen. Graham made his invidious view explicit in the conference call with Khan.

He also once said that it would be “terrible” if he took a DNA test and it showed he had Iranian ancestry. In retrospect I think he may have meant that such a bloodline might have made him partially brown and so would have denied him the benefits of being above the law enjoyed by white people. (Persian is an Indo-European language and Iran comes from the same root as “Aryan,” and a lot of Iranian Americans identify as white, but Graham was too incurious to have known all that.)

We have to revise the old saying. If you have neither the law nor the facts on your side, pound racist superiority and inherent lack of accountability.

And that is how Graham, in his guise as master prestidigitator, made the elephant of genocide disappear.


© 2023 Juan Cole


Juan Cole
Juan Cole teaches Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. His newest book, "Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires" was published in 2020. He is also the author of "The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation Is Changing the Middle East" (2015) and "Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East" (2008). He has appeared widely on television, radio, and on op-ed pages as a commentator on Middle East affairs, and has a regular column at Salon.com. He has written, edited, or translated 14 books and has authored 60 journal articles.
Full Bio >

Trump Is Waging a Psychological Warfare Campaign Against US Democracy

By constantly raising the alarm about election fraud, Trump seeks to stir fear, doubt, and confusion in the minds of voters.


A young Black man holds up his “I voted” sticker after voting in an election.
(Photo by Getty Images)

Michael Waldman
Jul 15, 2026

Brennan Center for Justice

With 112 days to go until Election Day, President Donald Trump’s drive to undermine the vote continues. As time runs short, his efforts grow more aggressive, more brazen. But they are facing pushback with ever greater assurance.

Last Friday, Trump pushed out the remaining commissioners on the Election Assistance Commission. This tiny agency exists to provide help and funding for states. Trump had previously tried to force the commission to implement his pet voter suppression policy—requiring a passport to register to vote—but a federal court barred it from doing so in a lawsuit brought last year by the Brennan Center and others. Now, without any commissioners, the agency can’t do much of anything.

Another federal judge quashed Justice Department subpoenas issued to hundreds of election workers in Fulton County, Georgia. The judge said the subpoenas were “staggering,” and that the Justice Department was engaged in a “fishing expedition.”

Also last week, the Department of Justice (DOJ) sent a scarifying letter to state officials warning that they will be held criminally liable if noncitizens are found on the voter rolls or voting.

All of us who care about free, fair, and secure elections in 2026 should say loud and clear: Voters can vote with certainty.

Utah’s Republican lieutenant governor, who runs elections in that state, wrote: “Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution. I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts. This is truly bizarre behavior by the federal agency that is supposed to be protecting civil rights.”

Trump even claimed that recently deceased Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) last conversation with him involved his allegedly ardent support for the anti-voter SAVE Act.

Now comes word that on Thursday, Trump will deliver an address to the nation, rumored to be when he will reveal that the 2020 election was hacked by... China? Iran? Whoever.

Why is the president continuing to press on like this? Yes, he’s relitigating the 2020 election. And some of his desired election policy changes, were they to become law, could restrict the vote for millions.

But the bigger reason is to stir fear, doubt, and confusion in the minds of voters.

We’re seeing a psychological warfare campaign waged against American democracy by leaders of its own government.

People tell me of encounters they’ve recently had with voters. One voter is convinced she will have a hard time voting because she changed her name when she got married from the one on her birth certificate, even though the SAVE Act has not become law. Another worries that the Supreme Court’s Voting Rights Act ruling in Louisiana v. Callais means they cannot vote.

Crazy rumors fly. That former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, for example, will “confess” to stealing the 2020 election in exchange for leniency. And so on. Few pan out. But the decibel level can be deafening.

All this requires deftness by those who would protect the vote. Every election year, voting advocates like the Brennan Center weigh carefully whether and how to reassure voters, as merely mentioning the potential threats to voting could backfire and scare people away from the polls.

Latino voters and other immigrants, for example, may fear Immigration and Custom Enforcement being present at polling places. Even though such a deployment would be illegal, simply raising it as a possibility may cause voters to stay home. Fear would have done its work.

For other voters, though, we may see a new phenomenon: Efforts at suppression could fuel mobilization. In the South, Black voters are outraged by the efforts to redraw election maps after the Supreme Court’s Callais decision gutted the Voting Rights Act. They could turn out in historic numbers. People get really mad when you try to take something from them—and when it’s representation and the vote, watch out.

All of us who care about free, fair, and secure elections in 2026 should say loud and clear: Voters can vote with certainty. Make a plan to vote. Vote as early as you can. In person, via drop box, in the mail.

One hundred twelve days. It will feel like longer. But when this year is done, the strong response across the country to an egregious effort to undermine our democracy may be the real story.

© 2023 Brennan Center for Justice


Michael Waldman
Michael Waldman is President of the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, a nonpartisan law and policy institute that focuses on improving the systems of democracy and justice.
Full Bio >

Meet the millionaires investing in nature conservation

Cover image: DOWN TO EARTH © FRANCE 24
Issued on: 15/07/2026 - 17:52
05:54 min  From the show

In France, a handful of wealthy entrepreneurs are buying up hundreds of hectares of land with the goal of letting nature reclaim its rightful place. Among them is Rodolphe Landemaine, an artisan baker at the helm of 30 bakeries in France and Japan. He routinely opens the doors to his Normandy estate to other business leaders in hopes that they, too, will put their money to good use.

BY:

Valérie DEKIMPE

Alexandra RENARD

Haiti trapped by violence: Humanitarian aid deliveries struggle to reach local population

Cover image: Focus en Haïti © FRANCE 24
Issued on: 15/07/2026 
04:53 min

In this edition, our reporters look at Haiti, which is still in the grips of a long-running battle against armed gangs in the capital and some provinces. A new international security force is being deployed but has yet to make widespread progress. Against this backdrop, the humanitarian crisis in the country is continuing to spiral. 1.5 million people are now internally displaced in Haiti and malnutrition is widespread.

Delivering humanitarian aid is extremely challenging in the country. Accessing the capital by road is all but impossible, the airport still isn’t fully functioning and basic infrastructure is crumbling. Despite the difficulties, aid agencies are working to boost local communities’ resilience and keep the aid flowing. FRANCE 24’s Catherine Norris Trent and Roméo Langlois report from Haiti.

BY:

Catherine NORRIS TRENT

Romeo LANGLOIS

Following years of wildfires, Europe must 'diversify' landscapes and strengthen land management

Cover image: SPOTLIGHT © 2026
Issued on: 15/07/2026 
13:48 min  From the show

For Spotlight, François Picard is pleased to welcome Johan Sjöström, Senior Research Scientist at RISE Research Institutes of Sweden. He argues that the devastating wildfires affecting northern France are not an isolated anomaly but part of a "new normal" for Europe. His focus moves beyond extreme weather to examine the interaction between climate, vegetation, land management and institutional preparedness.

Rather than attributing the crisis solely to rising temperatures, he presents wildfire risk as the product of multiple reinforcing factors: wetter winters that generate combustible vegetation, repeated heatwaves that desiccate landscapes, strong winds that accelerate fire behaviour, and land management systems that have yet to adapt to these evolving conditions.

His central contention is that Europe must shift from a reactive model centred on emergency response towards a preventative strategy based on strategic landscape design, ecological planning and long-term adaptation to what may increasingly represent "the new normal."

BY:
François PICARD

Ilayda HABIP