The goal is obvious: Turn independent news outlets into state propaganda machines.
Amid surging oil prices and an unpopular war of choice in Iran, FCC Chair Brendan Carr is threatening not to renew broadcasters' licenses for "running hoaxes and news distortions." His Saturday post on X warns broadcasters they "have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up."
Carr's post came in response to a Truth Social message from Trump, which focused on war coverage by outlets like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. (Unlike TV networks, newspapers don't hold FCC licenses.)
The broader context is clear: Trump and his administration are trying to coerce independent outlets into parroting the government line.
Trump's post fixated on a Wall Street Journal report that five refueling planes were damaged in an Iranian strike on a Saudi air base. The more fundamental issue is that Trump appears stuck in a poorly planned war of his own choosing that has upended the global economy. Rather than admit that, his officials are using state power to pressure outlets into obscuring their incompetence.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wasn't subtle Friday, saying he looked forward to CNN being taken over by David Ellison, son of Trump-supporting Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
This comes alongside of Hegseth moving to limit the independence of Stars and Stripes, the news publication for members of the US military that has been published continuously since World War II.
Under the new policy, the paper that has mainly operated with editorial freedom, reports that it will generally be blocked from carrying news stories from wire services, as well as from publishing comics. It is also being directed to publish material from the Defense Department’s own public affairs offices.
Carr's move isn't his first. Last year, Jimmy Kimmel was pulled off air after Carr threatened ABC. With Ellison poised to take CNN, having already installed Bari Weiss atop CBS News, the administration may be pursuing a more effective strategy: put friendly billionaires in charge, and let the oligarchs do the bidding without being asked.
@sam.vp explains.
Yes, you read that right.
This past year, official social media accounts from the Department of Homeland Security, the White House, and other government agencies have adopted a distinct voice online.
The posts look like memes, utilizing dramatic AI-generated art, general patriotic slogans, and cinematic language about “defending the homeland” and shaping America’s future.
But if you look closer, a pattern emerges.
They repurpose language, symbolism, and cultural references with direct connections to neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements.
It’s content that experts say is instantly recognizable to those who are in the white supremacist know, but can be largely invisible to everyone else.
@sam.vp reports at the link in our bio.
📷: Samuel Corum / ZUMA
The US government keeps sharing Nazi propaganda.
This past year, official social media accounts from the Department of Homeland Security, the White House, and other government agencies have adopted a distinct voice online. The posts look like memes, utilizing dramatic AI-generated art, general patriotic slogans, and cinematic language about “defending the homeland” and shaping America’s future.
But if you look closer, a pattern emerges.
Many of these phrases, images, and attached media aren’t just regular social media content. They repurpose language, symbolism, and cultural references with direct connections to neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements. It’s content that experts say is instantly recognizable to those who are in the white supremacist know, but can be largely invisible to everyone else.
So, let’s look at a couple of the more egregious examples that reveal this pattern.
There has been not one, but two posts from our government institutions that reuse a phrase ripped straight from William Gayley Simpson’s book Which Way Western Man?. It was published and promoted by the National Alliance—considered one of the “best organized” neo-Nazi groups in the United States. The book is antisemitic, racist, and explicitly states that Adolf Hitler was right.
When reached by email for comment, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said “There are plenty of poems, books, and songs with the same title,” apparently referring to Which Way Western Man?. But a simple search across a variety of online music and literature libraries shows that isn’t necessarily true. One song by the same name did pop up with lyrics like “a war against Antifa, a war against the radical feminists, a war to take back our soul.”
“To cherry pick something of white nationalism with the same title to make a connection to DHS law enforcement. It’s because of garbage like this we’re seeing a 1,300% increase in assaults against our brave men and women of ICE,” she continued.
Individually, each post could easily be dismissed, but taken together, they seem to form something more deliberate: a stream of repurposed Nazi propaganda for the everyday person’s feed.
"Minnesotans are at the vanguard right now...Take what we’re doing and bring it to your cities.”
Reporters @natethecurious and @sam.vp spoke with first-time protesters, vets, and religious leaders at a demonstration outside of the federal Whipple building in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The building is where much of the federal activity is happening, and has become ground zero over the last months of regular and growing protests as the federal occupation of the city continues.
But the Minnesotans from far and wide have a message for people in the rest of the country who may watching. Here's what they have to say:
Demonstration at the federal Whipple building, January 30, 2026.
Some snaps from reporting there this morning. Talked with some kind and wonderful people—veterans, first-time protesters, life-long Minnesotans. Our dispatch will publish tomorrow on @motherjonesmag .
Stay safe friends.
The Trump administration is trying to do damage control and shift the optics of their operations in Minnesota. But according to reports on the ground, it still seems to be business as usual.
"We all say an oath when we graduate from nursing school, and he upheld that oath until the very end."
Nurses at Alex Pretti's memorial in Minneapolis spoke to our reporters @natethecurious and @sam.vp on Monday about gathering to honor a fellow nurse, who they say helped others until the very end.
Pretti, a US citizen and Minneapolis local, worked in the intensive care unit at a Veterans Affairs hospital. Videos detail the last moments leading up to his death: He was directing traffic on the street while filming immigration agents, attempted to assist another observer who was pushed to the ground by immigration enforcement, pepper-sprayed by the agent who ends up shooting him, and tackled by several agents onto the street.
"That's what nurses do," labor and delivery nurse Sarah Evans said. "We care and protect. So we'll do what we can to be in between harm and another person."
Our reporters @natethecurious and @sam.vp caught up with Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California at Alex Pretti's memorial in Minneapolis on Monday. He was there to pay his respects after Pretti was shot and killed by federal agents on Saturday, and to call for tearing down ICE and repealing its money—to "start anew," he said.
"I'll tell you, as a parent, to lose a 37-year-old son, and then to have that son insulted as a terrorist as opposed to celebrated as a hero...I'm a pretty even-keeled guy, but I was furious," he said.
"There are a lot of people here," he added. "It's not just immigrants, it's people of all different backgrounds, of all different races. This is the America I love. People need to come here to rebuild their faith in what this country is supposed to be for."
There's a big lie being spread about Minneapolis: That neighbors helping neighbors is evidence of something more nefarious.
It's an evidence-free claim—and hypocrisy at its finest, says Mother Jones digital producer Sam Van Pykeren. Our reporters have been on the ground in Minneapolis over the last week talking to the very people right-wing influencers and conservative politicians want to paint as an organized ring of bad actors for simply providing warmth and resources in sub-zero temperatures.
"We're just trying to help keep the community safe," says Minneapolis resident Todd, who was providing saline wash for community members who had been hit by tear gas unleashed by federal agents. "I've given out more saline and gloves and hand warmers than I've ever given out."
Senior reporter Julia Lurie also spoke with Minnesota residents outside of the Whipple federal building where agents have been housing detainees. Upon release, detainees are often left with no jacket, phone, or way to get home. So volunteers come together to provide all that and more. "There are people that get together, a little organization to give them a coat," said Don Buckvold. "Give them some food and find out where they live or they drive them home."
Of course, the accusations reek of a double-standard: Right-wing organizations have spent years funding their own operations for causes they deem worthy. "Did we forget about January 6 and how groups were funded and bussed in?" Sam asks in this video.
But for Sam, the hypocrisy goes deeper too: Many of these people decrying neighbors stepping up claim Christianity. And core to that is Jesus' message to "love thy neighbor."
"I was born and raised in the evangelical church and one of the most profound and fundamental messages of Jesus was to love thy neighbor, and that as what is happening here," he says. "These are just neighbors, loving neighbors."
He spent decades bringing the religious right to power. Now he's marching to undo it.
"Being here, in solidarity, is part of the repair work in my own soul," says Rev. Rob Schenck, an Evangelical minister who spent decades helping build America's Religious Right—commingling church and state to advance conservative causes like the anti-abortion movement.
Now, he says he must confront the damage he helped cause, including what he believes was his role in delivering "the entities that are now inflicting all of this suffering on so many people." One example: Schenck's organization, Faith and Action in the Nation's Capital, created "Operation Higher Court," which trained wealthy couples as "stealth missionaries" to befriend Supreme Court justices to preserve, in his words, a Christian nation.
"So now I have to do the work of repair," he told Mother Jones digital producer @sam.vp in the icy streets of Minneapolis on Friday during the city's "Day of Truth and Freedom"—a citywide strike and march in which clergy played a prominent role.
"These folks are showing more grace in accepting me than I would have ever extended to them," Schenck says, flanked by organizers shouting, "Whose streets? Our streets!"The next day, after learning of federal agents shooting and killing Alex Pretti, Schenck extended his stay in the city. More from his journey, and the clergy's fight against ICE, coming soon.
"This is redemption," he told Sam. "This is redemption."
