Team Trump Spent $9,137 on a Calm App Subscription (and LOTS of News)
As the prez and Musk slash federal spending for news subscriptions, I find what his PAC and RNC paid for after the election — including 'Business of Fashion', Tucker Carlson Network and, yes, Peacock
Dave Levinthal is an investigative journalist based in Washington, D.C. who previously wrote about Trump’s big spending on subscriptions to media outlets he derides. Dave led Raw Story's newsroom as editor-in-chief and was a deputy editor at Business Insider. He also worked as an editor or reporter at the Center for Public Integrity, Politico and OpenSecrets.
President Donald Trump just declared war on the federal government’s purchases of news media subscriptions thanks to a MAGA freak-out — amplified on social media by Elon Musk — over taxpayer-funded purchases of Politico Pro and other mainstream news services.
Following a spate of misinformation-fueled sleuthing on USASpending.gov over the government’s news subscription contracts, the president on Thursday deemed the matter a “scandal,” and Trump envoy Richard Grenell declared that the “U.S. government must stop paying for media subscriptions.”
But our nation’s subscriber-in-chief appears in no hurry to ditch his own paid news subscriptions.
In the weeks after Trump’s election, his political surrogates renewed or otherwise purchased subscriptions to a range of mainstream news organizations, including those the president routinely reviles as “fake news” and “enemies of the people,” according to The Ankler’s review of Federal Election Commission records.
Trump-connected political committees bought hundreds of dollars’ worth of new and renewed subscriptions post-election to a list of purported enemies including . . .
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