“Protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles have triggered a flood of falsehoods and conspiracy theories online, and Russia has sought to exploit and amplify them,” NBC News reports.
“Russian media and pro-Russian voices have embraced right-wing conspiracy theories about the protests, including one that alleged the Mexican government was encouraging the demonstrations against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.”
Eight states have introduced or passed legislation to ban planes from emitting “chemtrails” to poison Americans or control the weather, The Guardian reports.
Of course, there’s no credible evidence that this is even happening.
Wired: “The extremely public and increasingly unhinged breakup of Elon Musk and President Donald Trump has caused chaos in DC, forced Silicon Valley executives to pick sides, and wiped more than $150 billion off Tesla’s market cap.”
“But in the conspiracy-theory-addicted corners of the internet, the feud between Musk and Trump is nothing more than a fake, planned distraction.”
You're reading the free version of Political Wire
Upgrade to a paid membership for full access, exclusive analysis, the private Trial Balloon podcast, real-time trending news and an ad-free site. It’s quick and easy — and you can use Apple Pay.
Become a member. Already a member? Log in.
“President Trump’s Truth Social account is full of jarring juxtapositions: major trade policy announcements and presidential nominations broken up by bizarre conspiracies and personal boasts,” Axios reports.
“The president’s words matter, whether he’s moving markets with tariff threats or spreading unfounded conspiracies about his political rivals, and the White House has mimicked Trump’s bellicose online persona.”
“Emboldened in his second term, Trump has surrounded himself with conspiracy theorists and posts without restraint.”
President Trump shared a post alleging that Joe Biden was “executed in 2020,” and replaced with “clones” and “robotic engineered soulless mindless entities.”
New York Times: “People who question whether the Earth is round — a fact understood by the ancient Greeks and taught to American children in elementary school — might have been political pariahs a decade ago. Now, they’re running local Republican parties in Georgia and Minnesota and seeking public office in Alabama.”
CNN rejected the conspiracy theory that the cable network somehow had advance knowledge of the attempt on Donald Trump’s life last summer.
“A federal judge on Tuesday night rejected the auction sale of Alex Jones’ Infowars to The Onion satirical news outlet, criticizing the bidding process as flawed and the amount of money that families of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary shooting stood to receive,” the AP reports.
Roger Stone said it is “a tragedy” and “not fair” that he was outbid by The Onion in his attempt to buy InfoWars in the bankruptcy auction to keep it going.
He said he wants Matt Gaetz to investigate what happened as soon as he takes office as attorney general.
Taylor Lorenz: “The rampant election fraud conspiracies on Threads show how Meta’s efforts to downrank and minimize journalistic content on the app have helped to create a vacuum in which misinformation thrives unchecked and users are unable to find reliable, accurately reported news.”
“The conspiracies also show how many self-described liberals have grown increasingly conspiratorial and unable to distinguish fact from fiction in a chaotic and broken information ecosystem.”
“Pro-Trump groups have spent years building election denial networks that, combined with Big Tech’s hands-off approach and continued foreign interference, have created a toxic information ecosystem,” Wired reports.
“U.S. intelligence agencies have identified domestic extremists with grievances rooted in election-related conspiracy theories, including beliefs in widespread voter fraud and animosity toward perceived political opponents, as the most likely threat of violence in the coming election,” NBC News reports.
“It has been nearly four years since a parade of judges dismissed wild claims from Donald Trump and his associates about hacked election machines and a year and a half since a leading machine company obtained a $787.5 million settlement from Fox News over the debunked conspiracy theories,” the New York Times reports.
“But Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and his closest allies are again trotting out the theories as part of a late-campaign strategy to assert that this year’s election is rigged — although this time Mr. Trump’s campaign appears to be largely acting behind the scenes.”
New York Times: “Meteorologists’ role of delivering lifesaving weather forecasts and explaining climate science sometimes makes them targets for harassment, and this kind of abuse has been happening for years, weather experts said.”
“But amid the conspiracy theories and falsehoods that have spiraled online after Hurricanes Helene and Milton, they say the attacks and threats directed at them have reached new heights.”
“Politicians and right-wing influencers have spread conspiracy theories online suggesting that Hurricane Milton has been geoengineered by nefarious forces, with the end goal of preventing Republicans from voting in the presidential election,” Wired reports.
“The ‘weather weapon’ theory and others began proliferating when Hurricane Helene made landfall nearly two weeks ago, leaving at least 230 dead. And now, some of these wild narratives are not only reverberating on fringe corners of the internet but also are being spread by major accounts—chief among them, GOP congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.”
“Representative Eli Crane, a first-term Republican from Arizona, has been everywhere that will have him, promoting conspiracy theories about the assassination attempts against Mr. Trump, despite all evidence that such theories are false,” the New York Times reports.
“And far from sidelining or attempting to silence him, Republican leaders have given him a prominent platform to air his outlandish claims at the highest levels, lending credence to the conspiracy theories spread by him and others on the far right.”
“Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones ‘ Infowars media platform and its assets will be sold off piece by piece in auctions this fall to help pay the more than $1 billion he owes relatives of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, under an order expected to be approved by a federal judge,” the AP reports.
“J.D. Vance not long ago described conspiracy theories as the feverish imaginings produced by ‘fringe lunatics writing about all manner of idiocy,’” the AP reports.
“That was before he became a rising star in Republican politics.”
“The Ohio senator and GOP’s vice presidential nominee has in recent years declared that the federal government deliberately allowed fentanyl into the United States to kill conservative and rural voters. He has praised Alex Jones, a well-known conspiracy theorist who claimed the deaths of 20 young children in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax.”
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.
Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.
Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.
Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.
Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.
“There are a lot of blogs and news sites claiming to understand politics, but only a few actually do. Political Wire is one of them.”
— Chuck Todd, host of “Meet the Press”
“Concise. Relevant. To the point. Political Wire is the first site I check when I’m looking for the latest political nugget. That pretty much says it all.”
— Stuart Rothenberg, editor of the Rothenberg Political Report
“Political Wire is one of only four or five sites that I check every day and sometimes several times a day, for the latest political news and developments.”
— Charlie Cook, editor of the Cook Political Report
“The big news, delicious tidbits, pearls of wisdom — nicely packaged, constantly updated… What political junkie could ask for more?”
— Larry Sabato, Center for Politics, University of Virginia
“Political Wire is a great, great site.”
— Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”
“Taegan Goddard has a knack for digging out political gems that too often get passed over by the mainstream press, and for delivering the latest electoral developments in a sharp, no frills style that makes his Political Wire an addictive blog habit you don’t want to kick.”
— Arianna Huffington, founder of The Huffington Post
“Political Wire is one of the absolute must-read sites in the blogosphere.”
— Glenn Reynolds, founder of Instapundit
“I rely on Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire for straight, fair political news, he gets right to the point. It’s an eagerly anticipated part of my news reading.”
— Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist.