The Big Ben Show: Robby Starbuck and Tricia McLaughlin
Plus my latest New York Post column on Vanity Fair
The latest Big Ben Show podcast is here, and you can listen and watch below — guests are Tricia McLaughlin of DHS and activist Robby Starbuck, and the monologue is on Candace Owens. Watch and share!
Why Do Republicans Fall Prey to Legacy Media?
My latest New York Post column:
Oops, they did it again.
The White House decision to cooperate with Vanity Fair, giving the magazine exclusive access to top Trump administration figures, is one more example of what happens when you let the legacy media pretend that this time, it’s changed.
That its editors won’t screw you over, its reporters won’t put the worst possible spin on your remarks, its photographers won’t dream of using Photoshop to highlight your every blemish for social-media snipers to spread far and wide.
Why, oh why, does every Republican administration fall in love with the idea of trying to win over the people who hate them?
Beware of writers who act like you’re a friend.
Unless I’ve bailed you out and didn’t write about it, I assure you, we are not.
I admit that looks can be deceiving.
But nothing is more deceptive than Vanity Fair’s depiction of members of this administration in bizarre close-ups deliberately staged and selected to make them look ugly — spotlighting splotches, scars and crazy eyes.
In the past, legacy media at least had some shame about this.
When The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg profiled John McCain in 2008, the photographer hired for the piece used lighting and strobes in a purposefully deceptive way.
As The Post reported at the time, the photographer “crowed that she had tricked McCain into standing over a strobe light placed on the floor — turning the septuagenarian’s face into a horror show of shadows . . . The resulting photos depict McCain as devilish, with bulging brows and washed-out skin.”
“‘He had no idea he was being lit from below,’ [the photographer] said, adding that none of his entourage picked up on the light switch either. ‘I guess they’re not very sophisticated.’”
Goldberg and James Bennet, The Atlantic’s editor at the time, both publicly apologized — calling the photographer’s behavior “incredibly unprofessional”.
They knew how bad it would make them look for their magazine to do such a thing to a man who earned his scars in war.
This time, no such apology should be expected.
In recent years, photographers have learned there are no negative consequences to acting like smear artists when a Republican is the subject.
This White House is stacked with young and telegenic figures, in comparison to past administrations — and the Vanity Fair photographers did their best to make them look ridiculous.
You have to work pretty hard to make 28-year-old Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt look like a withered crone. But these journos viewed it as a mission.
They even presented as ominous the lighthearted ball-busting of Vice President JD Vance, who offered photographer Christopher Anderson and his assistants $1,000 to make Secretary of State Marco Rubio “look really sh–ty.”
The piece frames this as a sign of “underlying tension” between the two potential challengers for the 2028 nomination.
Any normal red-blooded American knows this is how men josh with each other — but there aren’t many of those at Vanity Fair.
If you aren’t familiar with DC’s small and swampy social circles, it’s easy to imagine that there must be some reporter at this publication with a smidge of even-handedness.
But we’re talking about Vanity Fair here, an outlet that branded Zohran Mamdani a legend before he ever held a real job.
The same Vanity Fair that until recently employed as a prominent editor one Olivia Nuzzi, who had zero respect for off-the-record quotes — or for the expectation that a reporter shouldn’t try to sleep with her profile subjects.
She pretended to be friends with a lot of Republicans too, you know.
Perhaps White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, the story’s main source, should have taken a lesson from Stanley McChrystal, the former four-star general who resigned in 2010 after airing his criticisms of Barack Obama to a reporter from Rolling Stone.
Like McChrystal, Wiles committed a “Kinsley gaffe,” in the parlance of DC — telling a journalist too much of the truth about her feelings.
Yet multiple administration figures jumped to her defense, because Wiles has shown herself to be such a canny operator to this point.
And despite some of the juicier quotes in the piece, she is running a much tighter ship of state than her predecessors.
That’s one reason, even after mistakenly thinking Conde Nast would ever treat a Trump figure fairly, she’s likely to stay in that job.
Vance, at least, seemed more aware that Vanity Fair would do them dirty: “Is this the part where you say we’re all evil?” he reportedly asked.
For the dying hate-filled legacy media, it’s always that part, Mr. Vice President. And it always will be.
✍️ Feature
🌍 Foreign
Semafor: Ukraine’s Grid Confronts the Possibility of Total Collapse
Semafor: Australia to Tighten Hate Speech Laws Following Bondi Beach Attack
National Interest: 15 Years Later - The Arab Spring’s Painful Lessons
🏛️ Domestic
Washington Examiner: Trump’s Economy Message as 2026 Elections Loom
Spectator: Trump Reels Off 2025 Achievements in White House Address
Politico: Cost of Living Pressures Democracies, New Poll Finds
Washington Examiner: TPUSA’s AmericaFest Proceeds After Charlie Kirk’s Death
New York Post: Bill Clinton Took Epstein, Maxwell to Moroccan King’s Wedding
📰 Media
Variety: Inside WBD–Paramount Deal Talks and Zaslav’s Pay Package
Politico: Cruz Presses FCC to Stand Down After Kimmel Threats
Mediaite: Trump Fails to Mention Venezuela After Tucker Carlson Claim of War
Mediaite: Candace Owens Explodes at Piers Morgan Over Charlie Kirk Claims
🧬Health
Politico: Brian Fitzpatrick Pushes Obamacare Discharge Petition
Washington Examiner: Thune Keeps Door Open to GOP-Only Healthcare Push
New York Post: Hochul’s Bend on Assisted Suicide Opens a Grim Door
💻 Tech
✝️ Religion
🎭 Culture & Hollywood
🪶 Quote
“To increase desires to an unbearable level whilst making the fulfillment of them more and more inaccessible: this was the single principle upon which Western society was based.”
— Michel Houellebecq