Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders said during a Tuesday interview that President Donald Trump, Elon Musk and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos have created the most frightening time period in his 83 years of life.
Sanders claimed on “Pod Save America” that all three billionaires have taken actions that have influenced the media landscape in ways that could be dangerous. The Vermont senator said it was “objectively the truth” that their conduct has led to what he considers “the scariest times in [his] lifetime.”
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“These are, you know, the scariest times in my lifetime … I think that’s objectively the truth. You know, it is not just they want to give tax breaks to billionaires and cut programs to working people,” Sanders said. “Frankly, that’s happened before. But you combine that with the power of the oligarchy in general. You combine that with Mr. Musk owning Twitter and able to send out his messages to hundreds of millions of people.”
Musk purchased Twitter — now X — in October 2022 and pledged to reinstate free speech on the platform after censoring content during the 2020 election and COVID-19 pandemic.
“You combine that with the fact that people like Bezos, the second wealthiest person in the country, fired or got rid of most of his editorial staff and is going to convert ’em into a right-wing thing,” he continued. “Combine that with the fact that Trump is suing major media outlets and is threatening to investigate PBS and NPR.”
Al Hunt, who has worked in journalism for more than six decades, similarly said in February that he had “never been as depressed” as he was after Trump and Bezos’ actions. Bezos had just shifted the Post’s op-ed section to prioritize defending personal liberties and free markets.
The Post’s digital readership plunged by nearly 90% from 22.5 million daily active users in January 2021 to just 2.5-3 million in the middle of 2024, Semafor reported in January.
Moreover, ABC News and prominent host George Stephanopoulos agreed in December to settle Trump’s defamation lawsuit, pledging $15 million as a “charitable contribution” toward a future “[p]residential foundation and museum” for the president.
“So it’s not only the power of money; it’s also, combined with that, the movement toward authoritarianism. You know, when Trump unilaterally cuts federal funding that was passed by Congress, that is illegal,” Sanders said. “That is unconstitutional. When you have the vice president saying, well, in his judgment, the courts don’t have the right to stop unconstitutional acts of the president, man, that is authoritarianism. That’s what the courts are.”
“He is now trying to end what the Founding Fathers were pretty smart about — creating a form of government where there were checks and balances, you know, a legislative body, an executive body and a judiciary,” he continued. “So he’s moving aggressively in all of these areas … This is a scary moment.”
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