Politics
This is what happens when a MAGA billionaire goes down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole
A rather unfortunate aspect of American discourse is the notion that a person’s adeptness at moving other people’s money around — or being an early investor in PayPal — is proof of near-infallible genius. It’s an unspoken yet understood maxim among many that the exorbitantly wealthy are also endowed with an encyclopedic knowledge, rare political courage, ideological independence and an almost extraterrestrial level of sage wisdom.
Bill Ackmanthe billionaire hedge fund guy turned terminally online MAGA activist, seems to believe he possesses all of these qualities. Now, he thinks he’s got the scoop of the century on his hands — a certain death knell for trust in the media and other institutions. The story that Ackman is relentlessly pushing — for which no remotely credible evidence exists — is that ABC News conspired with Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign to provide sample questions and assurances of favoritism toward Harris prior to the presidential debate earlier this month. And this — not Harris’ competence and coherence or former President Donald Trump’s temper and nonsense — is Trumpists’ explanation for why Harris was able to wipe the floor with Trump at the debate.
On Tuesday, Ackman did his best impression of Alex Jones demanding to speak to the manager…
The conspiracy theory was also amplified by many prominent voices in the online right: Elon MuskMegyn Kelly, Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Free Press columnist Abigail Shrier and high-profile MAGA influencers Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson (both of whom recently claimed they were unwitting victims of what federal prosecutors allege was a Russian government campaign to pay them millions of dollars). As hyperpartisans will say when they lack evidence but are blindly driven by motivated reasoning, “Big if true!”
The whole thing appears to have been sparked by purported screengrabs of an alleged affidavit from an ABC News “whistleblower,” who supposedly came forward prior to the debate to lay out the grand conspiracy. According to Mediaitethe screengrabs originated from a site called County Local News. NewsGuard, a news and information reliability ratings company, included the site in its report about AI-generated content farms and noted its penchant for headlines that “read like that of an AI parody.”
As Mediate notes: “Anything that could be used to verify the accusations in this ‘affidavit’ is blacked out: the so-called whistleblower’s name and all identifying details, the signatures, and the name, license number, and seal of the notary public. Any basic computer and printer from the past thirty years could have been used to type up this exact document, print it out, scrawl some signatures on it, and then black out sections. Posting a scan of it online proves nothing except that someone owned a computer and printer and had a little free time.”
The source material was so unconvincing that even the ultra-MAGA Gateway Pundit — which has defended itself from multiple election-related disinformation lawsuits — declared the purported affidavit “a complete hoax” and warned its readers to not even click on the site from which the theory originated.
But in various posts on X over the past week, Ackman — who did not respond to BLN’s request for comment — said he “find[s] the allegations credible as written.” Because the ABC News debate moderators did not respond to unattributed allegations originating from a fake news site, he argues, “one must draw a negative inference.” ABC News later denied the evidence-free allegationsnaturally, but that didn’t end Ackman’s quest for justice.
On Tuesday, Ackman did his best impression of Alex Jones demanding to speak to the manager: “Come to think of it, I am going to alert the @SEC directly about @Disney, @ABC and their misleading response to the whistleblower’s accusations about the presidential debate.”
Ackman’s single-minded insistence on running with illogical allegations from some guy on Twitter and a virus-riddled AI spam site — simply because those allegations claim to impugn a mainstream news outlet — is laughable. Like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and any number of right-wing podcasters, his reflexive contrarianism commits him to the belief that institutions and experts are, by definition, wrong, regardless of the evidence.
Ackman’s single-minded insistence on running with illogical allegations from some guy on Twitter and a virus-riddled AI spam site…is laughable.
But as amusing as Ackman’s behavior may be, he’s legitimately dangerous. Just as Musk, Trump, JD Vance and other hugely influential right-wing activists did to justify their slanders of Haitian immigrants in Ohio, Ackman is taking his cues from internet noise. This is the opposite of intellectualism and honest inquiry. But it’s not the only reason Ackman’s “just asking questions” crusade poses a threat.
Like his allies Musk and Trump, Ackman talks a big game about supporting free expression while leveraging his billionaire bully pulpit against speech he doesn’t like — for instance, when he threatened lawsuits against a news publication for reporting in ways he didn’t appreciate. Some of his allies on the MAGA right are aggressively pushing for the Supreme Court to reconsider the landmark 1964 Sullivan v. New York Times decision, which created the current standard of “actual malice” that government officials, public figures and other high-profile plaintiffs suing news organizations for defamation must meet.
Ironically, thanks to the high bar set by the Sullivan decision, Ackman is unlikely to face any consequences for spreading unproven allegations to defame the character of any number of people at ABC News and with the Harris campaign. But there’s something insidious about one of the richest people on the planet pushing literal garbage into the political discourse right before an election, while also using the weight of his fortune to legally threaten news organizations that publish things he would rather not see in public.
Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and writer for BLN Daily. He was previously the senior opinion editor for The Daily Beast and a politics columnist for Business Insider.
Brazil has won a record five World Cups, but the most important match it has ever played may have been an exhibition match against Haiti that was meaningless in sporting terms but has had a long influence on each country’s politics.
On Aug. 18, 2004, Brazil’s players drove through the streets of Port-au-Prince in armored personnel carriers, World Cup champions greeted like liberators. Two months earlier, Brazil’s military had arrived to lead a multinational peacekeeping force established by the United Nations following a bloody coup d’état.
“We’ve only seen such joy in the eyes, the exuberance of the eyes, when we paraded in Brazil after winning the World Cup,” coach Carlos Alberto Parreira said afterwards. “I will never forget this moment.”
The team was accompanied to the U.N.-hosted friendly match that followed — “They play, peace wins,” went the slogan — by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, then in his first term as Brazil’s president. More than two decades later, Lula is back in office, now cemented as the most accomplished leader the world’s left has seen in the 21st century. His approach to foreign policy, say observers, was shaped partially on the soccer pitch that day in Port-au-Prince.
“It showed he was trying something different as a diplomatic tool,” said Mauricio Savarese, an Associated press political reporter in São Paulo who has researched the legacy of the 2004 game. “That match at the time was a symbol of Brazil’s soft power. You really showed how Brazil could win hearts and minds with a policy that was not exactly bowing to the United States or to the China or to Russia, but independent.”
The match, designed to build goodwill between a shell-shocked population and its benevolent occupiers, began after players from the two national teams unfurled a pre-match banner that read “Social Justice is the True Name of Peace.” The peacekeeping mission represented an early commitment to “continental solidarity,” as Lula defined it in a speech the following year to up-and-coming diplomats where he cited the Haiti mission as an example of “non-indifference.”
Lula was feeling his way toward a foreign policy centered around South-South Cooperation and the BRICS alliance of emerging markets. Lula has used that role as de-facto leader of the democratic developing world to, with mixed results, position Brazil as a leader on climate change — it hosted last year’s COP30 in the Amazon city of Belém — and a mediator when thorny international conflicts arise. It has a position of official neutrality in the Russia-Ukraine war, so as to serve a potential role as mediator, as it did when partnering with Turkey in 2010 to broker a nuclear-fuel swap with Iran.
That same year, an earthquake hit Haiti, killing over 100,000 people while injuring and displacing millions more. It also destroyed the headquarters of the U.N. Stabilisation Mission in Haiti, even as Brazil led a post-disaster humanitarian relief effort. The experience further deepened ties between the two countries, as Brazil introduced a humanitarian-visa program for the first time to welcome Haitians fleeing the devastation; it has since been extended to Syrian war refugees, as well. One historically Italian neighborhood in São Paulo is now known as Little Haiti.
The broader peacekeeping mission began to resemble a military quagmire in humanitarian garb: Brazilian troops were blamed for human-rights violations and a cholera epidemic, while doing little to improve the overall security situation. For Lula and his protegée Dilma Rousseff, the Haiti project became a political liability, in both Haiti and Brazil.
As the two nations prepare to face off against one another in Philadelphia on Friday, Lula is not expected to be in attendance. Instead his travel schedule this week was built around the G7 summit in France, in which Brazil participated as one of five “partner countries” — a reflection of its increased global standing over the past few decades. If Lula shows up at one of Brazil’s matches later in the World Cup, it will likely be with a domestic audience in mind rather than a foreign one: he is in the midst of a reelection campaign for his fourth term, against a son of his longtime antagonist Jair Bolsonaro.
“I doubt that anyone is going to vote for him just because he’s recognized abroad as a key leader,” said Savarese, Brazilian political journalist who wrote the book “Dilma’s Downfall.” “But of course that helps with some moderates, which are a very thin part of Brazil’s electorate, and they’re going to be decisive in October’s election, that is also one of the things that tips the balance in his favor, as is being seen as this pragmatic leader who can also be respected even when he’s speaking about issues that clearly don’t affect as much in Brazil’s daily life.”
That day in Haiti, not yet a global figure, Lula confronted one limit on his power. He reportedly asked his team not to score too many goals, in the interests of goodwill. The players did not oblige, winning 6-0, including an astonishing solo effort from Ronaldinho.
Blue Light News has been crunching the numbers to see how all 48 of this year’s World Cup participants rank in several other off-field categories, which we’ll share more of over the weekend.
In today’s item, we look at whether GDP per capita has any connection to soccer performance. As you can see, the chart does show some positive correlation — note, for example, wealthy tournament contenders such as France, the Netherlands and Germany all in the upper right corner.
But it’s not a perfect indicator. By this metric, Qatar is the wealthiest country in the tournament — and it lost 6-0 to Canada on Thursday …
CANBERRA — It was disappointment from start to finish around the USA vs. Australia match in the Bush Capital, won comfortably by the American side.
Neither of Canberra’s Socceroos made the starting lineup and the local government failed to provide an outdoor watch site for the match, despite a heavy social media campaign from locals. With federal politicians out of town and back in their districts this week, the campaign lacked star power and fell on deaf ears.
That left thousands to fill inner city pubs and the University of Canberra, which were allowed special trading hours for the match, from 4.30 a.m.
Australia’s politicians — vocal in their support in the lead-up to the match — went silent quickly, after Australia’s own goal 11 minutes minutes into the game.
If the Aussies’ lackluster performance left the crowd subdued, they found energy to boo Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a notably unpopular figure in Australia, which embraced harsh Covid lockdowns and vaccines — when he appeared on the match broadcast.
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