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Media Faces Reckoning After Helping Trump Downplay Project 2025 on Campaign Trail

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Original article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

The Democratic National Committee sponsors a billboard about then-Republican candidate Donald Trump and Project 2025 at 12th & Vine Streets on September 9, 2024, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Lisa Lake/Getty Images for the Democratic National Committee)

“A Trump denial is not a fact,” said one media critic.

As President Donald Trump openly embraces Project 2025, mainstream media outlets are facing criticism for their role in helping him downplay his ties to the wildly unpopular far-right governing playbook in the lead-up to his reelection last year.

After she became the Democratic nominee in July, former Vice President Kamala Harris made the Heritage Foundation’s over 900-page manifesto for “the next conservative president” central to her case against Trump during the 2024 election, often referring to it as “Trump’s Project 2025.”

She and other Democrats warned that if he retook power, he would swiftly enact many of its most extreme and unpopular proposals and dramatically expand executive power while doing it.

Among those proposals were steep cuts to social safety net programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the “mass deportations” of millions of immigrants, the elimination of the Department of Education, new restrictions on abortions, the gutting of climate protections, and the replacement of career civil servants with political appointees, among many others.

Democrats amplified the plan’s danger at the Democratic National Convention and in campaign ads, and Trump began to distance himself from the platform. Despite the fact that as many as 140 people who’d worked in his first administration—including Paul Dans, Heritage’s director of Project 2025—had a hand in its creation, Trump said: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it.”

This was demonstrably untrue, even at the time. Media Matters for America dug up a clip from as far back as May 2023 of Dans stating that “President Trump’s very bought in with this,” speaking of the program.

Project 2025 was almost inconceivably unpopular. An NBC News poll from September 2024 showed that while 57% of registered voters viewed the plan negatively, just 4% viewed it positively.

But in the critical months leading up to the election, many media outlets took Trump’s denial at face value, publishing fact checks and other commentary that painted Democrats’ warnings about his connection to the plan as alarmist or misleading.

Responding to a social media post in July stating that “Trump has made his authoritarian intentions quite clear with his Project 2025 plan,” a fact check by USA Today rated the statement “false,” because, as the headline said, “Project 2025 is an effort by the Heritage Foundation, not Donald Trump.”

In September, after Harris confronted Trump about Project 2025 at the first and only debate between the two, the paper published another fact-check with the headline: “Harris repeats claim that Project 2025 is Trump’s plan. That’s still not right.”

In response to Harris’ claim during the debate that Project 2025 was “a detailed and dangerous plan… that the former president intends on implementing if he were elected,” Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler, whose coverage received a fair bit of criticism during the 2024 cycle, reported in bold text that “Project 2025 is not an official campaign document.”

A CNN fact check of the Harris campaign’s social media in September remarked that one account “frequently invokes Project 2025,” before caveating that “Project 2025 is not Trump’s initiative, and he has said he disagrees with some of its proposals.”

In an October interview on CBS‘s“Face the Nation,”anchor Norah O’Donnell, Harris attempted to warn about Project 2025, before O’Donnell responded: “You know that Donald Trump has disavowed Project 2025. He says that is not his campaign plan.”

After nine months back in power, the website Project 2025 Tracker estimates that Trump has already implemented approximately 48% of the objectives outlined in the policy document.

In addition to his key campaign promises many of his second administration’s policies are highly specific to Project 2025, such as his pledge to abolish the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), his efforts to privatize the National Weather Service (NWS), his reconfiguration of Title X funding to promote pregnancy, and his elimination of the Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties.

Trump is no longer hiding his connection to Project 2025, having brought in many of its hiring picks and authors to staff his administration almost immediately after his victory last November.

This week, he began to boast about it openly. As his Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director, Russ Vought, one of Project 2025’s architects, began using the current government shutdown to unilaterally cut off funding to infrastructure projects in blue states and cities, Trump lauded him as “he of PROJECT 2025 Fame.”

“This was always the plan,” Harris responded on social media.

While many commentators expressed outrage that Trump blatantly lied about his connections to Project 2025, others dredged up old clips of newspapers and anchors taking him at his word.

“All those 2024 media fact checks that said, ‘Donald Trump and the Trump campaign deny any connection to Project 2025’ look pretty ridiculous right now,” said MeidasTouch editor-in-chief Ron Filipkowski. “A Trump denial is not a fact. You just used his lies to ‘debunk’ a reality that was obvious to anyone paying attention.”

Mehdi Hasan, the founder of the independent media company Zeteo, highlighted the CBS interview, saying Trump’s embrace of Project 2025 was “embarrassing not just for Norah O’Donnell but a whole host of leading American anchors and reporters who echoed Trump’s false denials.”

“Nothing showed the difference between mainstream and independent media better than the response to Trump’s obvious lie about not knowing anything about Project 2025,” said David Pepper, author of the book Saving Democracy: A User’s Manual. “Most mainstream media started fact-checking those who claimed a connection to be somehow false. Others ‘both sides’ed’ it. Far more in independent media called it out as a whopping lie.”

Original article by Stephen Prager republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Continue ReadingMedia Faces Reckoning After Helping Trump Downplay Project 2025 on Campaign Trail

Warren, ‘Every Single American Needs to Know’ Trump’s GOP Is to Blame

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Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

A healthcare worker turns on an operating light in the emergency operation room in the labor and delivery unit at the medical complex in Hondo, Texas on February 26, 2025. (Photo: Kaylee Greenlee for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

“When thousands more people die from not getting care, we know who to blame,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Monday that the American public “needs to know” that the blame will lie squarely at the feet of President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers if and when hospitals across the country are forced to shut their doors due to the unprecedented Medicaid cuts included in the new budget law.

“Every single American needs to know what Donald Trump and Republicans did in the ‘Big Beautiful Bill,'” Warren (D-Mass.) wrote on social media, referring to the budget reconciliation package that the president signed late last week.

“When hospitals close their doors, we know who to blame,” Warren continued. “When thousands more people die from not getting care, we know who to blame. When kids go hungry, we know who to blame.”

The nation’s rural hospitals, which rely heavily on Medicaid reimbursements, are expected to bear the brunt of the pain from the Republican law, which includes more than $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts as well as destructive changes to federal nutrition assistance and other programs. Nursing homes, community health centers, Planned Parenthood clinics, and other facilities are also at risk, and states are now scrambling to prevent catastrophe.

An analysis published by the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform prior to passage of the GOP legislation estimated that more than 700 rural hospitals across the U.S. are at risk of closing due to “serious financial problems.”

“Republicans will try to ignore the devastation their disastrous reconciliation bill will cause. We won’t.”

The health policy organization KFF notes that federal Medicaid spending in rural areas is projected to fall by $155 billion under the GOP law over the next decade—an amount that far exceeds the $50 billion that Republicans allocated to a “Rural Health Transformation Program” over the next five years.

Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association, warned in a statement following the Senate’s passage of the legislation earlier this month that the bill would “limit access to care for all rural patients by ending healthcare coverage for rural residents nationwide and putting financial strain on rural facilities who care for them.”

Already, as Common Dreams reported last week, a healthcare clinic in rural Nebraska has announced it is shutting its doors in part due to the expected impacts of the GOP Medicaid cuts. The closure is predicted to be the first of many.

A recent analysis by the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill warned that more than 330 rural hospitals are at risk of closing or reducing services due to the Trump-GOP assault on Medicaid.

Over the weekend, Trump administration officials defended the budget law in talk show appearances by attempting to downplay its impact on Medicaid and other healthcare programs.

Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said Sunday that he believes “nobody is gonna lose their insurance”—a claim that dramatically conflicts with the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that around 17 million people will lose health coverage under the Trump-GOP law.

“He is only off by 17,000,000,” quipped Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) in response to Hassett’s comments.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote over the weekend that “Republicans will try to ignore the devastation their disastrous reconciliation bill will cause.”

“We won’t,” Sanders added. “We’re going to make them explain what happens when 16 million lose their healthcare and nursing homes and hospitals are forced to shut down or limit services.”

Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Continue ReadingWarren, ‘Every Single American Needs to Know’ Trump’s GOP Is to Blame

Dozens arrested on Capitol Hill protesting Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”

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Original article by  Peoples Dispatch republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Demonstrators arrested in the Russell Senate Office Building (Photo via Debt Collective/X)

Protesters denounce cuts to Medicaid, which could kick 16 million off of nation’s largest public insure

On Wednesday, US Capitol police arrested 33 demonstrators who were part of a larger protest of over 60 people in the Russell Senate Office Building, denouncing the proposed cuts to Medicaid within the Trump-backed “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Some protesters were restrained and arrested while in wheelchairs. 

The demonstration was organized by the Debt Collective, Popular Democracy, and the disability rights group ADAPT. Protesters wore shirts with the text “healthcare cuts will kill” and were arrested while unfurling a banner that read “Senate Republicans, don’t kill us, save Medicaid.” The bill is currently moving through the Senate after passing in the House of Representatives. 

Medicaid is the nation’s largest public insurance program, which currently insures 71 million people in the US. According to analysis by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, the Senate version of the bill would cause roughly 16 million of those people to lose health insurance by 2034. This analysis predicts that the Senate bill would lead to more losses of coverage than the version of the bill which passed in the House. Public health researchers at Yale and the University of Pennsylvania have warned that certain provisions in the House bill could lead to more than 51,000 deaths each year. 

Some Republican lawmakers have been callous regarding constituent concerns over Medicaid cuts. Notably, Republican Iowa Senator Joni Ersnt faced nationwide backlash after defending the proposed cuts at a town hall meeting in late May. When one of her constituents shouted that people would die without Medicaid healthcare coverage, Ersnt replied “well, we all are going to die.

Original article by  Peoples Dispatch republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

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Continue ReadingDozens arrested on Capitol Hill protesting Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”

AOC, Sanders Rallying 15,000 Arizonans—With Thousands More Watching Online—Makes Clear ‘The Moment We’re In’

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Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), left, joins Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) on stage before speaking at “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here” rally Thursday, March 20, 2025, in North Las Vegas. (Photo: Ronda Churchill for The Washington Post via Getty Images)

“People are starting to put the pieces together, and ironically the most divisive forces in this country are actually starting to bring more of us together,” said Ocasio-Cortez.

A stop on Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ nationwide town hall tour “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here” in Tempe, Arizona that also featured Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York on Thursday broke the record for the number of attendees at an event hosted by Sanders, an Independent from Vermont, in the state, according to his director of communications.

“This is a big deal,” wrote communications director Anna Bahr on X of the gangbusters turnout.

“Just to be clear about the moment we’re in: Bernie Sanders’ biggest crowd in Phoenix previously was 11,300 in 2015 when he was running for president. Tonight, in a non-campaign year, when he is running for nothing, 15,000 Arizonans turned out,” she wrote. Bahr also said that more than 123,000 people watched the livestream of the event online.

Footage of the event shows a completely packed event space at Arizona State University’s Mullet Arena. At least a 1,000 people could not enter the arena because there was no room inside, according to the Arizona Mirror.

Sanders launched his “Fighting Oligarchy: Where We Go From Here” tour, which focuses on working-class districts that President Joe Biden won in 2020 but were won by a House Republican in 2024, in February, with the aim of talking to Americans about the “takeover of the national government by billionaires and large corporations, and the country’s move toward authoritarianism.”

In their remarks on Thursday, Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders spoke about Republican efforts to target programs like Social Security and Medicaid and billionaire Elon Musk’s influence over the GOP.

“The billionaires who are taking a wrecking ball to our country,” said Ocasio-Cortez—alluding to Musk’s efforts to slash federal spending and personnel with the Department of Government Efficiency, and other billionaires in U.S. President Trump’s orbit—”derive their power from dividing working people apart.”

“People are starting to put the pieces together, and ironically the most divisive forces in this country are actually starting to bring more of us together,” said Ocasio-Cortez.

“Their disdain for working people,” she continued, “is a shorthand for the right’s entire political agenda and a certain kind of ugly politics in this country—and that is lying to and screwing over working at middle class Americans so that they can steal our healthcare, Social Security, and veterans benefits.”

When Sanders took the stage, he said, “Trump and his billionaire friends have never, ever had it so good in the history of this country.”

Sanders also argued that if a Republican voiced opposition to Republicans’ plan to deliver tax cuts that will primarily benefit the wealthy, “Musk in five minutes would say, ‘we are going to primary you’… That is not a democracy.”

Musk—who donated hundreds of millions of dollars to Trump and other GOP candidates in 2024—has threatened to fund moderate candidates in heavily Democratic districts.

Original article by Eloise Goldsmith republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). 

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Continue ReadingAOC, Sanders Rallying 15,000 Arizonans—With Thousands More Watching Online—Makes Clear ‘The Moment We’re In’

‘Extremely Dangerous Time’: Sanders Warns of Oligarchs’ War on Working Class

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Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) attends a Senate hearing on January 29, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images)

“Does anyone really think that the oligarchs give a damn about ordinary Americans?” the senator asked. “Trust me, they don’t.”

As U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday continued their effort to gut the federal government, Sen. Bernie Sanders warned that “the oligarchs, with their unlimited amounts of money, are waging a war on the working class of our country, and it is a war that they are intent on winning.”

A week after delivering a speech that sounded the alarm about “America’s dangerous movement toward oligarchy, authoritarianism, and kleptocracy,” Sanders (I-Vt.) took the Senate floor again to target the world’s three richest people—Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg—and the politicians who serve them.

“We are living in an extremely dangerous time,” the seantor said Tuesday. “Future generations will look back at this moment—what we do right now—and remember whether we had the courage to defend our democracy against the growing threats of oligarchy and authoritarianism.”

As chair of Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk’s targets have included the U.S. Agency for International Development, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Department of Education, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and a critical U.S. Treasury Department payment system. Reporting—and remarks from the billionaire—suggest that the agencies responsible for Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security are next.

“As we speak, right now, Elon Musk, the wealthiest man on the planet, is attempting to dismantle major agencies of the federal government which are designed to protect the needs of working families and the disadvantaged,” said Sanders. “These agencies were created by the U.S. Congress and it is Congress’ responsibility to maintain them, to reform them, or to end them. It is not Mr. Musk’s responsibility. What Mr. Musk is doing is patently illegal and unconstitutional—and must be ended.”

Sanders also detailed Trump and his allies’ attacks on the federal judiciary, which has delivered a series of blows to the Republican president’s agenda since he took office last month.

“Mr. Trump and his friends are not just trying to undermine two of the three pillars of our constitutional government—Congress and the courts—they are also going after the media, in a way that we have never seen in the modern history of this country,” the senator said. While recognizing that the media “makes mistakes every day,” he added that “I do hope that every member of Congress understands that you cannot have a functioning democracy, you cannot have a free flow of information, you cannot have the pursuit of truth, without an independent press.”

The senator also how the top three billionaires impact what information reaches people by buying news outlets and social media platforms—as Musk did with Twitter, which he rebranded X, and Bezos did with The Washington Post and Twitch. Zuckerberg, meanwhile, has made his money through Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

“They will use the enormous media operations they own to deflect attention away from the impact of their policies while they ‘entertain us to death,'” Sanders warns. “They and their fellow oligarchs will continue within our corrupt campaign finance system to spend huge amounts of money to buy politicians in both major political parties.”

“Does anyone really think that the oligarchs give a damn about ordinary Americans?” he asked. “Trust me, they don’t.”

Sanders warned that “if we do not stop them, they will soon be going after the healthcare, nutrition, housing, and educational programs that protect the most vulnerable people in our country—all so that they can raise they money they need to provide huge tax breaks for themselves and for others billionaires. As modern-day kings who believe they have the absolute right to rule, they will sacrifice, without hesitation, the well-being of working people in order to protect their power and their privileges.”

However, he also stressed that “the worst fear of the ruling class of our country is that the American people—whether they are Black or white or Latino, whether they are urban or rural, whether they are young or old, gay or straight, whatever—the fear of the ruling class is that the American people come together to demand a government that represents all of us, not just the people on top.”

“The oligarch’s nightmare is that we will not allow ourselves to be divided up by race, religion, sexual orientation, or country of origin and will come together and have the courage to take them on,” he declared. “If we stand together, we’re gonna win this fight, and not only will we save American democracy, we’re gonna create the kind of nation that I think most of us know we should become.”

Original article by Jessica Corbett republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

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Continue Reading‘Extremely Dangerous Time’: Sanders Warns of Oligarchs’ War on Working Class