The mainstream media treated President Donald Trump’s extremely narrow win in 2024 as if it were a landslide victory.

While it was surprising that so many people voted for Trump after his disastrous first term, it wasn’t like had been given a massive mandate from the public.

But soon after Trump’s victory, the press—which already spent years normalizing Trump’s racist and corrupt behavior—seemed ready to capitulate even further, in some instances completely compromising their independence while attempting to curry favor with him and his most ardent supporters.

In December 2024, before he was even sworn in, ABC News’ parent company Disney settled a lawsuit with Trump. Media law experts said that Trump’s suit lacked merit—he was upset about reporting on his being found liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll—but the media giant paid him off anyway.

That set a tone for much of the softball coverage that has played out in the ensuing years.

The Washington Post, owned by pro-Trump billionaire and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, purged much of its editorial staff who have expressed skepticism about the right. Since then, the paper’s opinion section has targeted progressives like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

And over at The New York Times, minimizing Trump’s corruption and even heralding the “age of Trump” has become the default for much of its coverage.

Still, no one has capitulated to Trump quite like CBS News. 

Like Disney, CBS’ parent company Paramount paid off Trump after he sued for coverage of his campaign. Soon after, his administration gave Paramount the green light to merge with Skydance, effectively becoming Paramount Skydance, which is headed by top Trump donors Larry and David Ellison.

The Ellisons then installed conservative activist Bari Weiss to run CBS News, where she has pulled stories critical of Trump and purged reporters and producers who don’t take the company’s new pro-MAGA line. 

Paramount Skydance is also bidding to take over Warner Discovery, the parent company of CNN, and replicate the MAGA-fication process there.

On paper, this would seem to open the door to MAGA, which can now turn to these outlets like it has with conservative media for decades. But that isn’t happening. 

CBS has lost ground in TV ratings while the right still fumes about outlets like the Times and ABC. They have been taught for eons to regard any remotely critical coverage as a plot by the “liberal media”—and that isn’t changing.

Upset by objective news coverage, the right built up its own ecosystem of content, ranging from local and national right-wing talk radio to networks and digital platforms like Fox News, One America News and Newsmax.

Right-wing media has grown and thrived, but its stock in trade is conspiracy, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and other bigoted content. While outlets like CBS may want to get the MAGA crowd tuning in, transitioning to the type of media beloved by the right isn’t so easy.

This is a tough road, even for outlets like Fox and Newsmax, who had to pay out millions for lying on Trump’s behalf after he lost the 2020 election. So far, that’s an avenue that outlets like CBS have been unwilling to go down, even under Weiss.

And even when the mainstream media carries Trump’s water, he has still relentlessly attacked them, constantly lashing out at the “fake news” and encouraging his supporters to do the same.

The conundrum that these brands have created is one in which their would-be audience isn’t showing up, while their existing audience grows increasingly hostile and skeptical.

A Gallup poll taken in October 2025 saw trust in media drop among Democrats, from 76% saying they had a “great deal” of trust in 2018 to just 51% in 2025—and that was before the bulk of MAGA apologist content and behind-the-scenes dealings happened.

Perhaps MAGA supporters will break from their concentrated right-wing media diets and tune in for a new experience with the mainstream media. And maybe the rightward shift won’t turn off independents and Democrats as the news turns against them.

But that’s an unlikely endgame. 

The right will stick with the outlets it trusts, and mainstream outlets have once again shot themselves in the foot.

We’ll get straight to the point: The financial hardships that Daily Kos is facing this year are tough.

We continue to be paywall-free. We continue to be supported by our readers, not billionaires or corporations. But we need to bring in more revenue. We are leaning on our community more than ever to help make ends meet.

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