There was a time when getting a story wrong was the worst thing that could happen to a news organization. Today, when the target is President Donald Trump, getting it wrong carries no cost at all. The media really have no shame. They publish anything damaging as if it were true, skip the fact-checking any first-year reporter would know to do, and then act as though nothing happened once the whole thing falls apart. No shame, no accountability.
And it works every time because a lie only has to live long enough to reach the people who want to believe it.
ABC News just ran the play again. On Wednesday, the network published a report claiming that companies backed by the president's sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, had landed more than $6 billion in active or promised government contracts after receiving investments connected to them.
Less than a day later, ABC yanked it.
By Thursday morning, October 8, the page returned a 404 error. The network offered no correction, no editor's note, and no explanation.
So why did the story disappear? Because someone who knew the facts checked ABC's work, which ABC apparently never bothered to do. Alexa Henning, spokesperson for 1789 Capital, the venture capital firm where Trump Jr. is a partner, took the report apart on X.
This post shows you have literally zero financial literacy. 1789 Capital does not have a "major stake" in Anduril. It's false to say Vulcan, Firehawk, and PsiQuantum are "backed by Don Jr and Eric Trump."' Here's a small lesson, that I also explained to ABC, the "reporter" who is a complete idiot conflated raising funds with investment by 1789. Those are two separate actions. Meaning the "investments" mentioned were actually the total number raised for a funding round, that MANY companies contribute to. Another thing that the reporter buried the lead on was that many of these companies have gotten government contracts during Biden AND Trump, which completely negates the assertion by ABC that Don Jr and Eric Trump are doing anything wrong. Total biased hit piece that is not being regurgitated by dumb trolls on the internet.
— Alexa Henning (@alexahenning) October 8, 2026
According to Henning, the reporter mixed up the total size of fundraising rounds involving multiple investors with the money 1789 Capital itself put in. "Those are two separate actions," she added.
The report also made no effort to separate government work these companies won before Trump returned to office from work they won afterward. Anyone trying to prove a president's family cashed in on his presidency should probably start there.
"Many of these companies have gotten government contracts during Biden AND Trump," Henning wrote, calling the story a "Total biased hit piece."
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But the bogus report did the job it needed to do long before ABC hit delete. It had already spread widely among Democrat lawmakers and Trump critics, and it remains available through the Internet Archive for anyone who wants to keep passing it around. Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) was among those who shared it on X, and Trump Jr. made sure he heard about it.
ABC deleted this article in less than 24 hours because it’s false. Sounds about as long as your presidential campaign would last.
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) October 8, 2026
Let's be honest. The deletion changes nothing for the people who shared it. Fake stories stay believed on the Left long after someone proves them false, because the Left wants to believe them. Democrats still believe Trump colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election. They still believe the Charlottesville lie that he said there were "very fine people" on "both sides." They still believe the fake story that he refused to visit the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018 because the troops who died in battle there were "losers" and "suckers." They still believe the fake story that he only paid $750 in taxes in 2017.
Stories like these get debunked rather quickly, but never before the Left has convinced itself that they're true. Then it keeps citing them for years as if nobody ever knocked them down.
This is why media outlets deserve to lose their White House credentials for pushing fake news. If a network won't implement basic standards for verifying a story before publishing it, why should it get prime access to the president it keeps smearing? And let’s not pretend this report-first-fact-check-later strategy goes both ways. Remember how the media refused to report on the Hunter Biden laptop story over bogus claims it was Russian disinformation?
There’s always a collective conniption fit when Trump calls the media the enemy of the people, and yet they repeatedly prove that’s exactly what they are. They don’t report the news; they push a preferred narrative. Every. Single. Time.
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