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The Hartmann Report

Daily Take: Silencing Dissent Without a Single Raid: The Billionaire Capture of America’s News

The Hartmann Report

Thom Hartmann

News, Debate, The Hartmann Report, Economics, Thom Hartmann, Democracy, Climate Change, Congress, America

4.51.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2026

⏱️ 16 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When strongmen can’t crush the press outright, they simply get their billionaire friends to buy it, bend it, and cash in…

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Transcript

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1:00.2

Salonstein dissent without a single raid?

1:03.8

The billionaire capture of America's news.

1:08.1

Stephen Colbert joked that Donald Trump wants to silence anyone who says anything about him

1:12.9

on television because, quote, all Trump does is watch TV. It was a punchline, but it also revealed

1:19.5

something darker. When political power becomes obsessed with controlling the screen, the most

1:24.4

effective way to silence dissent isn't through raids or arrests. It's through

1:29.0

ownership. In today's America, the battle over free speech isn't happening in courtrooms. It's

1:34.7

happening in corporate boardrooms, and it's following an old script. When Victor Orban, the Hungarian

1:42.0

strongman who Rupert Marco Rubio visited this past weekend to tell him how much Donald Trump loves him and supports him,

1:48.8

wanted to crush opposition media in his country. He didn't need police, courts, regulatory agencies, or even threats.

1:56.3

He didn't even need the Hungarian mafia to break the knees of Budapest media owners or threatened reporters.

2:02.8

Orban simply got a few morbidly rich Hungarian oligarchs on the phone and told them that if they'd buy out the big media outlets and spin the news in his favor,

2:12.1

he'd make sure their government contracts and business opportunities and other non-media areas would more than compensate them

2:18.5

for their hassle and expenses. Orban let Republicans in on the strategy in May of 2022 when he spoke

2:25.7

to the conservative political action conference, CPAC, in Budapest, and told the American-Republican

...

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