What the Media Missed: DeSantis might defy Trump—but senators won't
This was the week that the wealthy and powerful bent the knee to Donald Trump. Tech CEOs including Apple’s Tim Cook, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos took their turns at Mar-a-Lago wining, dining, and dropping off million-dollar checks for Trump’s slush fund of an inaugural committee.
The media also accelerated its own surrender to Trump’s authoritarian future. On Saturday, ABC News announced its bizarre decision to settle a defamation suit filed by Trump to the tune of a $15 million payout and a formal apology. The decision was even stranger given the fact that Trump has failed in all of his previous media defamation lawsuits—leading critics to argue that ABC News prematurely surrendered in order to avoid Trump’s presidential wrath.
Most of that news flew right by the cable news media this weekend, which dedicated more air time to Elon Musk’s mom than to the creeping autocracy down at Mar-a-Lago. Here’s what you might have missed if you tuned into the networks this weekend.
In Texas, the war on abortion intensifies
During the presidential campaign, Republicans went out of their way to distance themselves from the nightmarish results of their nationwide war on abortion. Not anymore. This week Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton reignited the abortion wars after he sued New York doctor Margaret Carpenter for prescribing abortion drugs to a Texan woman—which, though legal in New York, is now a crime in Texas.
Paxton’s lawsuit is expected to become a model for other red states, where Republican legislatures and attorneys general are doing their best to ban women from accessing abortion resources even in states where abortion remains legal. New York has laws protecting the doctor that Paxton sued, but other states don’t have such robust protections for health care practitioners and the patients they serve. That could tee up a nasty federal legal battle over how much control states have over women’s bodies.
For Dr. Carpenter, the case is more acute: Violations of Texas’ ban on providing abortion services comes with a maximum sentence of life in prison and a $100,000 fine for each infraction. If Carpenter ever visits Texas, Paxton and anti-choice Republicans have vowed to detain her for violating the law. So much for that whole “small government” thing!
Florida’s very Trumpy showdown
Ron DeSantis isn’t a man known for his courage. In fact, the Florida governor spent much of the presidential campaign being gleefully humiliated by Donald Trump. But that may all change next month, when Sen. Marco Rubio is expected to be confirmed as the next secretary of state. Trump wants his daughter-in-law and newly retired RNC co-chair Lara to fill Rubio’s senate vacancy. DeSantis may have other ideas.
DeSantis is eager to shore up his position in Florida after a botched presidential run and declining support among voters. One way he’s looking to do that is by appointing a personal loyalist with a history of holding elected office. Meanwhile, DeSantis is also resentful at the number of times Trump has publicly demanded he grovel before the Mar-a-Lago crowd, raising the possibility that DeSantis may, finally, grow some backbone and stand up to the Boss. He hinted that the wannabe popstar-in-law might get not a seat in the upper chamber last month. DeSantis has pledged to name a successor in early January, according to a post on X.
This big decision is quickly becoming another litmus test for just how powerful Trump has become within the Republican Party. With eyes to 2028, Meatball Ron would be well-served with a friend in the Senate. Now he has to decide if that play is worth alienating the authoritarian in the White House.
Kash Patel: Trump’s Terminator
The corporate media’s concern around Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel, lasted barely a week before the circus moved on. That calm may be premature, as ex-FBI officials now worry that Patel is poised to exercise “unlimited power” in his potential new role. That includes installing new legal staff at the FBI who would willingly sign off on even blatantly unconstitutional raids and targeted harassment of Trump’s many enemies.
Patel’s increasingly open fantasizing about using the FBI as a tool for Trumpian revenge comes as journalists have started poking serious holes in his massively inflated CV. As it turns out, not only has Patel never done meaningful work within the FBI, he also grossly exaggerated his own role in the Department of Justice’s Benghazi investigation. That shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows anything about Patel. It’s also fueling his already white-hot resentment at the media—many of whom he’s already singled out for future prosecution.
Meanwhile, the odds of Patel actually becoming FBI director are growing by the day as senate Republicans bend the knee to Trump’s political whims. Even former skeptics including Sens. Thom Tillis and Joni Ernst are now saying they’ll likely support Patel, despite the issues with his resume and his blatant promises to use the FBI as a tool for attacking Democrats. It’s going to be an absolutely insane January on Capitol Hill, folks. Get plenty of rest now, because we’re about to kick the doomscrolling into overdrive.
Reach out!
Keep the conversation going all week by sharing stories you think the media missed with me at @themaxburns on Bluesky! And remember: If you’re tuned to cable news, you aren’t even getting half of the story.
Until next week, keep your eyes peeled and stay inquisitive, friends.