We’re finally seeing cracks in the GOP’s armor, thanks to Pam Bondi’s disastrous hearings and the increasingly horrific details emerging from the Epstein Files. Democrats were surveilled while they searched the un-redacted files, and that’s just one fact that should matter to everyone.
When it comes to the news, the truth has always mattered to me more than anything. As the MAGA cult snowflakes love to say, facts don’t care about your feelings — it’s just that MAGAts say it like a bunch of second-graders who learned how to bully from their sixth-grade brothers. The truth is that the truth is always true, no matter who wants to believe it, and will remain true whether anyone likes it or not, and most of the time, the truth is something we don’t like. But we’re taught to live with the truth and handle our business.
But how to get the truth to the American people, at a time when Donald Trump has single-tiny-handedly ruined the trust in the news media? The slow boil that began when he descended that gold escalator in June 2015 and declared his candidacy with a speech full of racist and xenophobic tropes ultimately led to the scalding hot pants-on-fire Project 2025.
The mainstream media initially dismissed Trump as a joke, until competitors started dropping out in alarming succession, soon after the Russian hacking of both the Democratic and Republican national committees. I don’t know why no one else ever saw the ripple effect of Vladimir Putin holding onto whatever he had on the Republicans while releasing everything on the Democrats, but Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio know.
Does the American public?
Trump’s control over the media is now so blatantly obvious it’s impossible to trust White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt or anyone else in the administration. Trump has banished almost all outlets that challenge him. Jeff Bezos gave him the Washington Post. Bari Weiss gave him CBS. It’s going to take years to repair the damage.
We all know what would happen if a Democrat tried to banish or control the media, especially if they’d turned the Oval Office into a tacky gold Hobby Lobby Make-A-Trophy display while demolishing the East Wing altogether. Oh, and had done so while being at the center of the biggest political cover-up in American history.
Democrats have always been capable of holding our own accountable — just ask John Edwards, Gary Hart, and Bob Menendez, to name a few who did things Republicans have done and were brought crashing down. And don’t get me started on Al Franken, who should be in the Senate right now, based on what now passes for basic congressional comportment.
Trump has forced himself on the media, to the point where people are simply turned off by the news altogether. “I don’t even watch the news anymore,” is something I hear a lot. I can’t blame anyone who says so, but that means they probably aren’t getting any real daily information about what Democrats are doing for the American people, including doing what they can to hold Trump and his cronies accountable.
Congressional Democrats have so much on their plates, trying to save our democracy, that they shouldn’t have to do Leavitt’s job for her too. That’s why, for well over a year, I’ve been advocating for the DNC to appoint an official Democratic Press Secretary. Not someone already in office. Not someone with ambitions to run. A proper press sec, who could hold daily briefings at the Capitol once the KKKarolyin’ ends at the White House. All media would be welcome, from the mainstream to anyone banned by Trump, to Fox, Newsmax, OAN and their rightwing like.
My choice when I began Twitter-pitching my idea was Jessica Tarlov from Fox News, someone familiar to the MAGA audience, a consistently strong and truthful presence while enduring the smarmy proximity of Jesse Watters. She could absolutely handle the gig, but she’d probably have to take a pretty sizable pay cut.
Around the same time I was pushing for a Democratic press secretary, my friend Cheri Jacobus was doing the same. She was lobbying for Pete Buttigieg, but I believe he has ambitions for 2028. We need someone else. I think Cheri fits the bill.
Cheri has experience on both sides of the aisle, and we’ve had several conversations on her podcast about how simple it would be to create the Democratic position. Like, set up in less than a week for not a lot of money simple.
The media would have no choice but to cover a daily Democratic Press Briefing, aired live so no one could claim it was AI. The DNC does offer videos on YouTube, but I bet you didn’t know that until you read this sentence, and that’s not enough right now.
We need someone in front of the cameras every day, reading that day’s list of Democratic accomplishments while fact-checking whatever Karoline just lied about. Like a daily response to the State of the Union address.
Everyone I’ve spoken to about it agrees that it makes sense. But despite my personal invitation to the 2024 Convention from then DNC Chair Jaime Harrison, and despite mutual Twitter follows with current Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta, my pleas have gone unacknowledged.
We have to keep demanding the truth from people we’ve entrusted with our livelihoods. Democrats have always delivered, and now it’s time to make sure the truth starts mattering more than being a dumb bully on a CNN panel or being afraid of a mean tweet. The American people deserve so much better.
- Tara Dublin is a political writer/commentator based in Portland, OR, who has been blocked by Donald Trump on Twitter since August 2015 and can occasionally be heard as a fill-in host on SiriusXM Progress. She is also the author of The Sound of Settling, a rock ‘n’ roll love story available at taradublinrocks.com
