AYMAN MOHYELDIN (HOST): Angelo, David Remnick has a new piece in The New Yorker where he writes that these "multi-billionaires have shamelessly dispensed with principle to seek an indulgent new president's favor and enhance their fortunes." How dangerous could this get for everyday Americans? Is this just about, I mean, maybe walk us through how when these billionaires make more money and have more involvement in our politics, how does it become worse for the ordinary American?
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah, I think that's the question here about this in this moment, because as has already been discussed, money and politics has had a corrupting and corrosive effect ever, you know, even more so since Citizens United. That's been with us for a while. So what's the so what, what's different about this moment? And what's different about this moment is sort of what you said up there, which is that you have these in part, these sort of tech oligarchs, right, who have an enormous -- and not just them, but then sort of their the people who one step outside of them -- who control our information landscape or have disproportionate influence over it. And so one of the effects is that we start to -- we're at this inflection point where we can't go back. We're not just managing corruption and corrosive effects in politics. We're sort of moving to and dealing with sort of anti-democratic effects of having money in politics. We're on the other side now where we no longer have a functioning democracy.
And what that means in practice is the following: you have not just them giving donations and hoping to get extra money and tax breaks, you know, sort of the standard fare political kind of corruption. On one layer on top of that, Zuckerberg was very explicit. Not only is he going to roll back a bunch of policies and tip the scales in favor of right wing Trump sort of narratives and agendas, but he's also going to expect something from the United States government. He's going to want Trump, the Trump Administration, to pressure Europe in particular, to stop, to deregulate the sort of the rules that have been put in place against Facebook. So there's going to be this feedback loop between all of these players now that have put a bunch of money into the system, that are not just going to want some direct benefits to them, but they're going to want to leverage the United States government for more power and larger systematic changes. And I think we've just seen the effects of this in the last 24 hours. I mean, there's a massive crypto party launched by, again, a new industry that's dumping a bunch of money into the politics. And while all these people are there yukking it up and partying because Trump is promising to do all kinds of things, including, you know, naming the sort of crypto czar that's going to help, you know, boost policies, maybe even have a strategic reserve. So dump a bunch of American public money into the crypto industry. He launches his own meme coin that is now worth, you know, had, you know, almost 100, 200% growth and had $30 billion market cap already. So this is the new environment they're heading into.
So to me, to sum it up, the so what is this, we're at an inflection point where we're not just managing corruption, we're at a transform -- it could transform into a place where our democracy no longer functions. And that's kind of what the president was getting to in his speech.
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MOHYELDIN: Let's talk about the role of misinformation and disinformation. And obviously, as we saw, and we were kind of talking about this with Mark Zuckerberg and canceling the fact checking program at Facebook. Trump and his allies have already promised retribution against some in the media. How do journalists go about holding the line in this time around? I mean, media, legacy media, institutional media is coming under such intense attack from all different directions, fact checking, being rolled back. How do Americans spot the truth? How do they stay up to date with accurate information?
CARUSONE: This is the antidote to the, to dealing with a lot of the harms that are likely to unfold. We're going to need truth vigilantes, which is what journalists are supposed to be. And so that starts at the top. Companies are going to have to stiffen their spine. There's been already a lot of sort of rolling over and settling. There was just some reporting recently that Paramount was considering settling its defamation lawsuit, the Trump defamation lawsuit against CBS. So because they have other deals that they want to make sure to get approved and are afraid if that litigation goes forward, you know, that will slow it down. They can't, you have to fight these things out. We have to one, be truth vigilantes. And then the second thing I would say, and it's a small bright spot, but it's an important thing, is that is to remember the following. That Trump is starting as a lame duck does not mean that he cannot be harmful, that he does not have power, but his power is going to be propped up, not just by these oligarchs, this money in politics. But we're on the verge of an information autocracy. So it's important that not just that journalists continue to stiffen their spines and to recognize that reality and speak truth to power and be truth vigilantes, but that individuals not get cowed so quickly into submission that this emperor has no clothes moment actually ends up becoming the reality. We can't be fooled by sort of the projection of power and the illusion of power that he's presenting, because it is truly anti-democratic. It's not going to be with the people. This sort of faux populism that's been discussed. We have to pierce that bubble.
So to me, those are the two things we need journalists to actually do -- this is their moment to shine, and it's probably their last chance if they don't, if they don't sort of follow through with their profession. But the second part is that we all have to remember the reality of this moment, and that doesn't mean we have to be hysterical and overreact, but we also have to recognize that we can't sort of anticipate and sort of immediately fold because of fear, because that's the only thing that's going to let all of these things sort of topple over. Information autocracy, actual autocracy -- those are the two ingredients here. We're in a social media environment, our own participation matters, but it starts with journalists.