Angelo Carusone on MSNBC's The Weekend: “The new norm is a bunch of Alex Jones in waiting that we will have to grapple with”
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From the November 16, 2024, edition of MSNBC's The Weekend
ALICIA MENENDEZ (CO-HOST): This week, one fake news website acquired another. The Onion, a satirical website bought the far-right media empire, Infowars, in a bankruptcy auction. Infowars was run by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. His assets were put up for auction after Jones lost a defamation lawsuit brought by the families of Sandy Hook shooting victims. The Onion plans to turn Infowars into a parody of itself.
Now we should note, a judge has paused the takeover while he reviews the terms of the sale. The right-wing media ecosystem, which includes dozens of Infowars-like groups, played a crucial role in Trump's reelection. Now he has an emboldened army of online influencers poised to be a mouthpiece for a second administration.
Joining us at the table, Media Matters president and chairman, Angelo Carusone.
SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND (CO-HOST): Angelo, I mean, you watch a lot of —
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS): I do.
SANDERS-TOWNSEND: A lot of — you've watched a lot of Trump, a lot of Alex Jones. Right? And when I saw this, I felt some sense of relief for the families of the — whose children were victims of the Sandy Hook shooting because Alex Jones has inflicted so much pain with his conspiracy theories onto their families for years. Your take on this.
CARUSONE: Yeah. I think it's — I mean, a couple of things. One, I felt good for the families. Right? So, wow, they finally have some measurable degree of accountability. They're not gonna get all the money that they deserve. But he won't be able to operate under the banner that he spent, you know, twenty-five years building. And that alone is significant because it feels like a symbolic victory. But beyond that, as he acknowledged, it disrupts his ability to continue his program. Now he'll do something long-term, but he's gonna have to adapt and change. And losing that be that foothold is a hit. And that's kind of sort of what they were looking for is a way to diminish his destructive potential to do this to other people. So that felt good right away.
SANDERS-TOWNSEND: The videos though right now that he's putting out, is he putting them out under InfoWars?
CARUSONE: He's not. Now temporarily, he'll be able to for a little while, while the judge halts this and they review this, but he's been putting it under — up under a new banner, a new news network that he's launched.
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MICHAEL STEELE (CO-HOST): Jones has now got a different level of competition. At one point, he was the big dog in the room. Now, there are a whole lot of little puppies who have grown up very quickly under Donald Trump, and have started to replace him. So this idea that, you know, somehow we've eaten into this and broken this part of the system, is really kind of shortsighted.
CARUSONE: Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up. On the sort of what the judge has done piece, I mean, I don't wanna get too too deep it because it's super technical legal stuff. But basically, you know, what Jones was hoping for was for the trustee to look at all the bids and then have some kind of a live auction, and that would give him a chance to maybe get some other backers that we don't know about and sort of win on default. That doesn't have to be the case though. Ultimately, the trustee is there to make sure that all the creditors get as much as they possibly can. And in this case, it looks like the Sandy Hook family said, look, we'll forego money that we are owed, as a part and we'll attach it to one of the bids in order to make sure that Jones is not able to continue what he's doing. That's what the judge is gonna review is whether or not there's something irregular there. But, ultimately, it looks like the trustee did exactly what they're supposed to do, which is try to get as much money for creditors as possible, and now all these other creditors will have better access to their funds. So I think that he's framing like a big thing. I think, ultimately, they're just doing their due diligence.
But, on your other point, that's the significant thing because that's the world we live in and we just saw the consequences of that in the election. You know, the families get some accountability with Jones, but one of the things that, as you noted, that's happening in the broader landscape and with Trump is that in the Republican party, it's that they are organizing power on what used to be considered the fringes. So it used to just be Jones and he'd be out there and he'd be disconnected from the space. But now, if you're a creator, you go out there, you know, Trump will sort of retweet you. He'll push you. He'll push your content. You have a vested interest in spinning up these false narratives, these extreme conspiracies because it might be used and operationalized for political purposes. So this is the new norm. The new norm is a bunch of Alex Jones in waiting that we are gonna have to grapple with.