Welcome back to The Red Letter. What a launch week! I’m grateful to some of the biggest stars on Substack like
, , , , and for welcoming me with live conversations that you can find in this e-mail. I’m also thankful to all of you who pledged to support my independent journalism by becoming paid subscribers. The influx of news tips are greatly appreciated. There’s a lot to dig into, and I’m just getting started.On Friday,
and I dissected my latest report “Fear and Loathing in the West Wing,” where I dive deep inside the West Wing where officials genuinely hate Elon Musk, who treats the revered Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, like a “fucking secretary,” as one source with knowledge so eloquently put it. AOC Rising?
Speaking of rage, Mehdi described the fury uniting liberal and moderate Democrats against Sen. Chuck Schumer for backing the Republican funding bill on Friday to avoid a shutdown.
By Saturday morning, a major Democratic donor texted me: “I have never been a fan of AOC, and strongly disagree with her on most issues, but I would seriously consider supporting her if she challenges Chuck Schumer. That’s how desperate many of us are for change in the leadership of the Democratic Party.”
The Democratic party isn’t just unpopular with D.C. insiders but across the country too. A new NBC poll shows that the party’s popularity has plunged to a new low with only 27 percent of registered Democrats saying they have a positive opinion of it. According to the poll, Democrats 2-to-1 say they want their leaders to fight Trump harder, even if it means partisan gridlock.
“It’s going to be difficult for Schumer or any Democrat who voted for the [continuing resolution] to recover from this,” this donor said. “Personally, I will never support them again. And given the lack of leadership and strategy, it’s becoming harder by the day to keep supporting the party. Until I see real change, my wallet is closed.”
A leadership source told me Schumer felt like he had no choice, because he didn’t see a clear off-ramp if the government shut down.
“If you are gonna go down a road, you better have an exit,” this source said, adding that Schumer is playing the long game and that these angry Democrats are going through the stages of grief after Trump’s win.
“Guess what one of those stages is: denial,” the source said.
Inside the Voice of America massacre
I could write newsletters upon newsletters about DOGE cuts, but the decision to terminate Voice of America’s 1,300 journalists, producers and support staff, hit home for me, not just as a fellow journalist, but as a former VOA intern. Now, that’s not to say that VOA wasn’t a sleepier organization than the newsrooms that I’ve worked in since, or that it didn’t have its challenges with dated equipment, but it was filled with mission-driven journalists who were dedicated to reaching 420 million people across the globe in places where free press is hard to find. I’m sure China, Iran and Russia will be happy to fill the news vacuum left by VOA, Radio Free Europe, Radio Farda in Iran, Middle East Broadcasting Networks and Radio Free Asia. You know their work is threatening autocrats just by the fact that their journalists have been imprisoned or detained all over the world.
Because of my longstanding connections with the network, I first obtained the notice of termination for the grant to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which counters Russian propaganda in Eastern Europe. In the letter, Kari Lake bizarrely signs off as “Senior Advisor to the Acting CEO with Authorities Delegated by Acting CEO." I looked into this and it turns out that Trump dismantled the bipartisan board that appoints the CEO, so Lake may not legally have the power to shutter the agency. The board was created to oversee leadership at United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) after Trump’s first CEO, Michael Pack, who fired senior executives at VOA who he suspected were not sufficiently loyal to Trump. There will obviously be court challenges to this decision. One of their top arguments is that Congress continues to fund the USAGM, with the clear intention of funding VOA, and that it was included in the Continuing Resolution.
“Everyone is gone but they are still being paid so it saves the government zero,” a former member of the board told me.
When I met Lake at the Turning Point ball in January, she seemed genuinely excited about taking over the broadcasting arm of the government and turning it into something bigger. I presumed she was thinking she could build it into Trump T.V., but now she’s left with a shell of a newsroom. Much like how Marco Rubio has been left with a skeleton staff at USAID. But she’s clearly had a change of heart and tweeted that the organization can’t be salvaged. On the one hand, she said she has to shut it down, but on the other hand, she said she wants to fix the agency, not making it clear if she’s talking about USAGM, the parent agency of VOA or VOA itself. It’s unclear if DOGE will give her enough money to relaunch a newsroom with her own editorial vision. There’s nothing in the law that prevents the administration from launching a Trump T.V., according to a former senior VOA official. They could syndicate Newsmax shows, send out editorials, or create all new content with hosts like Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Steve Bannon or Alex Jones.
I haven’t heard back from Lake, but I’ll send you an update when I do.
Influencers flush with PAC $$
Did you know that influencers were paid by political action committees to attend Trump’s address to Congress last week? I didn’t. On Friday,
and I examined how Democratic influencers are struggling to catch up to Republicans in the content creation game, and we shared notes on the brewing resentment over how it’s being managed by PAC money. Taylor and I agreed that we were going to dig into the ins-and-outs of this practice in a co-bylined piece that we hope to publish in a few weeks. Do you think influencers back by PACs should disclose that their content is paid for by political group like a T.V. ad would state, for example, “This is paid for by the People Who Hate Donald Trump”? Will social content ever be regulated or is it just free speech? Would love your thoughts. Still learning about the wild west of content creation.On Tuesday,
and I talked about how independent media is having a moment and reflected on what it’s like to work at network news where leadership dictates the coverage in subtle and monumental ways.On Tuesday, I shared with
how I was inspired to pursue investigative journalism as a teenager by the Muckrakers and how they used the pen to hold power to account. Steve also opened up about his experience being the fall guy for John McCain during the 2008 campaign. And and I pondered if J.D. Vance is just a placeholder for Don Jr. 2028.I’m off to a great Sicilian restaurant tonight called Piccola Cucina Casa with my dad, Peter, who drove all the way up to New York from North Carolina in my Black MINI Cooper Convertible. Great guy! I’m trying to sell the car so if you know anyone looking, let me know. It has a little over 70,000 miles. I call her Monica the Mini.
That’s all for tonight.
Sleep well and buckle up for another wild week.
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