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Video: News media and the politics of truth

News Media and the Politics of Truth with Eric Alterman

Eric Alterman speaks to the role of media with an increasing campaign of misinformation.

Eric Alterman is Distinguished Professor of English, Brooklyn College, City University of New York. From 1995 to 2020, he was The Nation’s “Liberal Media” columnist and is now a contributing writer to the magazine and also to The American Prospect, where he writes the weekly “Altercation” newsletter. In the past, he has been a senior fellow of the Center for American Progress, the World Policy Institute and The Nation Institute, a columnist for Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, The Guardian, The Daily Beast, The Forward, Moment, and the Sunday Express (London) and a contributed to The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Le Monde Diplomatique, among other publications.


He has also been named a Media Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a Schusterman Foundation Fellow at Brandeis University, a Fellow of the Society of American Historians, and a member of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

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Hardliners vs. Loyalists: Republicans Divide Over Mamdani Moment

U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani (L) during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on November 21, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Hardliners vs. Loyalists: Republicans Divide Over Mamdani Moment

Yesterday’s meeting between Donald Trump and New York City's Mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani, was marked by an unexpected cordiality. Trump praised Mamdani’s “passion for his community” and called him “a very energetic young man with strong ideas,” while Mamdani, in turn, described Trump as “gracious” and “surprisingly open to dialogue.” The exchange was strikingly civil, even warm — a sharp departure from the months of hostility that had defined their relationship in the public eye.

That warmth stood in stark contrast to the bitter words exchanged before and after Mamdani’s election. Trump had dismissed him as a “radical socialist who wants to destroy America,” while Mamdani blasted Trump as “a corrupt demagogue who thrives on division.” Republican Senator Rick Scott piled on, branding Mamdani a “literal communist” and predicting Trump would “school” him at the White House. Representative Elise Stefanik went further, labeling him a “jihadist” during her gubernatorial campaign and, even after Trump’s praise, insisting that “if he walks like a jihadist… he’s a jihadist.” For Republicans who had invested heavily in demonizing Mamdani, Trump’s embrace left allies fuming and fractured, caught between loyalty to their leader and the hardline attacks they had once championed.

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Trump's Clemency for Giuliani et al is Another Effort to Whitewash History and Damage Democracy

Former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, September 11, 2025 in New York City.

(Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Trump's Clemency for Giuliani et al is Another Effort to Whitewash History and Damage Democracy

In the earliest days of the Republic, Alexander Hamilton defended giving the president the exclusive authority to grant pardons and reprieves against the charge that doing so would concentrate too much power in one person’s hands. Reading the news of President Trump’s latest use of that authority to reward his motley crew of election deniers and misfit lawyers, I was taken back to what Hamilton wrote in 1788.

He argued that “The principal argument for reposing the power of pardoning in this case to the Chief Magistrate is this: in seasons of insurrection or rebellion, there are often critical moments, when a well- timed offer of pardon to the insurgents or rebels may restore the tranquility of the commonwealth; and which, if suffered to pass unimproved, it may never be possible afterwards to recall.”

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