Colby Hall
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Articles by Colby Hall
The Fraud in Nathan Fielder's Elizabeth Holmes Movie Is Nathan Fielder
SPOILER: This is for people who have already seen You Can See Everything. If you haven’t, stop reading unless you’re okay with spoilers. Nathan Fielder has made a three-hour movie that promises to settle whether Elizabeth Holmes is a fraud. The only fraud I could find in the movie was its true subject, Nathan Fielder.
JD Vance’s Message for Republicans Who Object to Smearing a Rape Survivor: Stop Whining
JD Vance has a message for the Republicans who took a principled stand this week against a campaign ad that smears a rape survivor: quit your bitching. He went to Ohio on Wednesday and answered a BBC question about a recent, controversial Vivek Ramaswamy campaign ad in which his opponent's estranged mother, Amy Acton, calls her own daughter a liar. Acton was raped by that woman’s husband, her stepfather, when she was 11 and 12.
Causation or Correlation? Fox News Ratings Decline as Trump Poll Numbers Nosedive
Donald Trump spent part of Wednesday counting who gets airtime on Fox News, and he wasn’t pleased. Chuck Schumer,Hakeem Jeffries,Jessica Tarlov, and “every Democrat” get more of it than “Pro Republicans,” which is why “MAGA, and REAL Patriots, will never like Fox!” Trump hammering Fox News on Truth Social over its coverage isn’t terribly new.
MORNING FRAME: Trump Lets China In, Keeps CNN Out, and Toasts a Communist Dictator
Morning Frame is a daily digest for news-obsessed, confident, and charming readers. It highlights what stories are emerging, crossing partisan bubbles, and fading. Powered by Narrative Prism software, which ingests thousands of bits of media every day. President Donald Trump hosted a lavish state dinner Thursday night celebrating Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with a guest list that included a who’s who of billionaire oligarchs and media titans, including David Ellison.
RATINGS DISASTER: Trump Failed to Beat a Normal Night on Fox News Despite Exclusivity
Donald Trump firmly believed that he alone could fix the current malaise the Republican Party finds itself in just two months out from the midterms. And so he put himself as the centerpiece for the Republican midterm convention that opened Wednesday night. Well, the ratings are in, and the numbers aren’t good for a White House that’s curiously decided to attack earlier in the week the one media outlet it most desperately needs.
ABJECT FAILURE: Trump's Iran War Has Cost $37 Billion, Gutted Munitions, and Sent Gas Above $4, With No End in Sight
The first American bombs fell on Iran six months ago. Half a year is plenty of time to judge how a war is going, and the results of this one can now be fairly assessed. The only reasonable conclusion is that it is an abject failure, which might be the most charitable description I can come up with. On Monday I wrote about the numbness across the political media world over this diplomatic and economic disaster of a foray.
MORNING FRAME: Trump's Socialist Beef, Harp's Obsession Gets Real, and Iran Moves to Plan Z
Morning Frame is a daily digest for news-obsessed, confident, and charming readers. It highlights what stories are emerging, crossing partisan bubbles, and fading. Powered by Narrativ Prism software, which ingests thousands of bits of media every day.
Both The Resistance and MAGA Loyalty Died the Same Slow Death Tuesday Night
Tuesday was a bad night for two kinds of candidates who at first blush had nothing in common with one another. Alex Vindman was supposed to have one of the most valuable résumés in Democratic politics. He’s not just a decorated officer, but he came to national prominence for testifying against Donald Trump in the first impeachment.
MORNING FRAME: Socialism Wins in Florida, Media Fights Back, and Trump's Iran Story Breaks
Morning Frame is a daily digest for news-obsessed, confident, and charming readers. It highlights what stories are emerging, crossing partisan bubbles, and fading. Powered by Narrativ Prism software, which ingests thousands of bits of media every day. Wednesday, August 19, 2026 Tuesday’s election results had just enough evidence to support the growing narratives on both sides of the aisle.
That Socialist Takeover Republicans Keep Warning You About? They’re Bankrolling It.
Over the past three weeks, leading conservative voices in both elected office and the media have been sounding the alarm over a socialist takeover of the Democratic Party. And not just a takeover, but a dangerous communist threat to democracy as we know it and the baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie-filled American way of life. A search of cable news transcripts over the past three weeks turns up nearly 6,500 mentions of the words socialist and socialism on Fox News.
MORNING FRAME: Jon Ossoff Gets Under Trump's Skin, An Ugly White House Attack, MAGA Breaks on Korea
Morning Frame is a daily digest for news-obsessed, confident, and charming readers. It highlights what stories are emerging, crossing partisan bubbles, and fading. Powered by Narrativ Prism software, which ingests thousands of bits of media every day. Tuesday, August 18, 2026 President Donald Trump berated CNN’s Kristen Holmes during an Oval Office gaggle designed to honor a teenage lifeguard who went viral.
Trump's Iran War Is a Five-Alarm Disaster. Why Isn't Anyone Sounding the Alarm?
Monday morning, President Donald Trump threatened to bomb an American ally that is currently trying to solve the problem that was created by the very war he started. This unfolded on Trump’s favorite cable show, Fox & Friends, after Trey Yingst reported on an 11-minute phone call with the president, in which he said: “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the shit out of them.” This wasn’t regarding a nation currently helping Iran or obstructing U.S. military attacks.
Too Dumb to Cover: Mike Lindell, Trump’s Third Term and the Lost Art of Looking Away
President Donald Trump appears to have finally given up on the idea of running for an unconstitutional third term. Mike Lindell refused to concede the Minnesota Republican primary he lost by 45,000 votes, claiming fraud or irregularities or some shit. And two former NBA players both claimed they now identify as women, declaring themselves eligible for the WNBA draft, which earned these douchebags a week’s worth of coverage from ESPN to the Advocate.
MORNING FRAME: Socialist Takeover Stalls, Trump's Press Deception, and Election Fraud That's D.O.A.
Morning Frame is a daily trade digest for the news-obsessed and highlights what stories are emerging, which are crossing partisan silos, and which are fading. Powered by Narrative Prism. Wednesday, August 12, 2026 The socialist movement is taking over the Democratic Party, right? Not so much. Well, maybe not as completely as previous narratives would have news readers believe.
Trump's Polls Stink, Oil Hits $90, and Conservative Media Found 34,000 Reasons to Relitigate 2021
Donald Trump’s is having a terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad week. Economic numbers and the Iran War have led to what’s not just been the worst polling of his second term, but of his entire time in the White House. Miraculously, the conservative media finds itself in a frenzy over a man who left government three years ago. How convenient. Let’s just take a look at how this is being covered on the right: Megyn Kelly pushed “Villain. Criminal. Sociopath. Shame on Anthony Fauci,“ to her audience.
Trump vs. Fox News Would Be the Fight of the Century. And Also a First-Round Knockout.
Friday afternoon’s Drudge Report read like a coroner’s report on a politically dead administration: TRUMP IN RUINS! BALLROOM BLOCKED. JOBS DISASTER. EVEN FOX RUNNING AWAY. Sitting under that banner, in italics, was a link to my Friday column arguing that Fox News is a more politically independent institution than its critics allow (thanks Matt!). Drudge saw that piece as evidence of a network heading for the exits, and was hardly alone.
PLOT TWIST: Fox News Is Flexing Its Political Independence as Trump’s Polls Nosedive
A Fox News poll in Texas delivered some uncomfortable numbers for Republicans this week. Democrat James Talarico led Ken Paxton 51–48, while nearly a quarter of non-MAGA Republicans said they were open to backing Talarico. Sean Hannity challenged the findings on air, which made for a useful glimpse inside the network: Fox’s polling operation was producing one picture of the race while one of its most prominent conservative hosts was arguing for another. Both existed comfortably under the same roof.
MORNING FRAME: Trump's Senate Revolt, Socialist Campaign Begins, and the Iran War Running on Empty?
Morning Frame is a daily trade digest for the news-obsessed and highlights what stories are emerging, which are crossing partisan silos, and which are fading. Powered by Narrative Prism. Friday, August 7, 2026 At 6:20 this morning, Lisa Murkowski announced that she’s a no on Todd Blanche.
Trump Says Communism Is America's Greatest Threat ... His Government Is Buying Into 30 Companies.
Intel’s largest shareholder warned America about the very dangerous threat of communism last week. That shareholder just so happens to be the United States government, which converted federal grants into a 9.9 percent stake in the chipmaker last summer. Under Donald Trump, the federal government has kept shopping for state-owned investment into the private markets ever since.
The MAGA Revolt and the Democratic Socialist Surge Are the Same Damn Story
The Democratic Party has a socialist insurgent winning a Senate primary. The Republican Party has a MAGA insurgency led by one of the most influential voices on the right. These are two existential fights, both aimed at the people in charge, and underneath them, each shares a problem that neither establishment can name because addressing it would be an admission of failure.
Nonstop Attacks on Hasan Piker Backfired and Helped El-Sayed Win the Michigan Primary
Mallory McMorrow spent the better part of spring demanding that her Democratic primary opponent Abdul El-Sayed cancel all campus rallies with Hasan Piker. She compared Piker to white supremacist turned MAGA apostate Nick Fuentes, declaring the alliance disqualified El-Sayed from the Michigan Senate race she was, at the time, leading in the polls. In July she suspended her campaign. At 2 a.m. Wednesday morning, with no outlet having yet called the primary, she gave El-Sayed her full endorsement.
Trump Trashing Jeanine Pirro Is a Bigger Deal Than Everyone Thinks
Donald Trump’s Monday Oval Office attack on Jeanine Pirro produced mostly another round of palace intrigue. She was summoned to the White House, then spotted leaving with a briefcase and a white box. Cable news pundits immediately speculated about a looming resignation. Fox News aired Trump calling his own U.S. Attorney a choker who “folded like an umbrella,” then moved on to Iran. As of Monday night, its only follow-up was a one-minute report several hours later. But it was the wrong story.
David Ellison's NY Times Op-Ed Proves He Has No Business Owning CNN
David Ellison went to The New York Times on Tuesday to answer the biggest question looming over his stalled attempt to buy Warner Bros. Discovery: Why should anyone trust him with CNN? His answer, incredibly, was G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Ellison’s guest essay begins by declaring that the lawsuits threatening his $110 billion acquisition are not really about competition. “The issue is whether I can be trusted as a steward of Warner’s CNN,” he writes.
UH OH: Trump’s Tariffs RAISED Prices According to Damning New Fed Report
Donald Trump ran for reelection in 2024 on a pretty simple promise that he’d lower the price of groceries, gas, and everything else, and that promise was the closing argument of the 2024 campaign.
Trump Debunks His Own ‘Imminent’ Iran Deal 12 Hours Later—Proving He Has ZERO Credibility Left
Donald Trump announced that a peace deal with Iran was not just imminent, but that negotiations toward it had been scheduled. Sunday evening, aboard Air Force One, he confidently told reporters that negotiations would begin Monday afternoon and that the deal would not only fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz but also guarantee that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon. “Now what we’re doing is we’re talking to them in the form of a negotiation,” he said.
Trump Is Now Officially Selling Access to the Presidency. Why Is This Not a Massive Scandal?!
The President of the United States is now selling a trading-speed advantage on his own announcements, and you don’t have to take my word for it, because that’s the sales pitch.
RFK Jr. Couldn't Win a Measles Vaccine Debate, So He Shamelessly Attacked Dana Bash Instead
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning as the sitting Secretary of Health and Human Services. As such, he is currently presiding over the worst measles outbreak in 35 years. But rather than focusing on how he might resolve this growing health crisis, he demanded that Dana Bash produce a scientific study from memory. When she couldn’t do it on cue, he flat-out insulted her by calling her a parrot and told her she was talking nonsense. It got worse from here.
Trump’s Polls Are Bad. But This Is Much Worse: Pro-Trump Media Is Collapsing as MAGA’s Apostates Boom.
Days after the US military started bombing Iran, Nick Fuentes looked into his camera and told his viewers, “Do not vote in the midterms, and if you do, vote Democrat.” It’s hard to ever really know if the White Supremacist is being earnest, but he clearly wasn’t trolling. He told his audience of young right-wing men, “The Republicans have to lose,” and “A cleansing fire is the only thing that will save us.” It was an instruction nobody in the MAGA coalition had ever issued before.
The F-Bomb Is the New Flag Pin
President Donald Trump told Fox News Wednesday morning that after Iran’s surprise attack on U.S. troops in Jordan, “we are going to beat the fucking shit out of them.” Senator Bernie Moreno looked at Anthony Fauci in a Senate hearing room a few hours later and flatly asked, “Who the fuck do you think you were?” For those playing at home, that’s TWO f-bombs from two branches of government before lunch.
Trump Just Got His Worst Poll Yet. The Alarming Part Is What He's Doing About It
CNN released a new poll Wednesday morning that at first glance reads like evidence of a presidency coming apart. Donald Trump is at 34 percent approval, his lowest in CNN’s polling. Perhaps more concerning for the White House? A record 73 percent of Americans say he has not paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems. Half the country strongly disapproves of him, which is the worst that figure has been in either his first or second term.
MORNING FRAME: Fauci's Ego, Trump's Senate End Run, and the McConnell Mystery
Morning Frame is a daily trade digest for the news-obsessed and highlights what stories are emerging, which are crossing partisan silos, and which are fading. Powered by Narrative Prism. Wednesday, July 29, 2026 Iran fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. base in Jordan Tuesday evening and every one was intercepted. Trump posted at 9:09 that he’d found a way around his own Senate. Fauci is at the witness table this morning under subpoena, and Lindsey Graham gets buried in South Carolina this afternoon.
Media Experts On Trump, Kaitlan Collins, Caitlin Clark, Lindsey Graham And More
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Despair or Discipline? Jon Stewart, Kaitlan Collins, and the Challenge of Covering Trump
Fresh off a weekend of demeaning and sexist insults from the President of the United States, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins sat down with Jon Stewart for a timely interview that turned out to be, yes, convivial and funny, but far more revealing than either of them might have intended. Of course, the context is Donald Trump and how the press covers him, and distinct postures emerged on the set of The Daily Show. Stewart delivered an understandable sense of despair, widely shared, and frankly accurate.
MORNING FRAME: Trump Loses the Senate, Netanyahu's Political Photo Op, and Fauci Gets Blamed...Again
Morning Frame is a daily trade digest for the news-obsessed and highlights what stories are emerging, which are crossing partisan silos, and which are fading. Powered by Narrative Prism. Tuesday, July 28, 2026 Republican senators have absorbed Donald Trump’s demands in silence for a decade. Yesterday, Majority Leader John Thune told him no on his favorite cable news network, Senator John Cornyn agreed with Thune later, and nothing happened to either of them.
Trump Isn’t Having a ‘Mental Health Episode.’ His Bizarre Behavior Is Just What Impunity Looks Like.
The New Republic published a piece Monday morning headlined “Trump Appears to Have Mental Heath Episode as He Posts AI Slop Nonstop.” The typo is theirs. An hour later, the president was on Truth Social demanding John Thune cancel the Senate’s recess, kill the filibuster, and pass the SAVE America Act before August. Trump named the actual legislative obstacle, Thune’s vote count, the very one Thune has been conceding to reporters all week.
Kaitlan Collins Owns Donald Trump
Note: Apologies in advance to Kaitlan Collins for the headline. It is hyperbolic, it borrows the internet’s adversarial slang, and it leans on the kayfabe logic of a rivalry she has spent months refusing to join. I would bet real money she hates it. It also happens to be accurate, and though she doesn’t need anyone’s help fighting her battles, somebody needs to say it plainly. The President of the United States spent his weekend abusing a journalist.
BAD TV: CNN Turned Trump’s Speech Into an Awkward Group Chat
CNN aired President Donald Trump‘s speech at the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner in full Friday night, and tried something genuinely new alongside it. While viewers watched the president speak, the left half of the screen ran “Live Analysis,” a produced scroll of text messages from CNN’s own journalists, Brian Stelter, Daniel Dale, Jeff Zeleny, Betsy Klein, Kristen Holmes, all styled as a group chat.
TIRED: Trump’s Press Corps Speech Proved Just How OVER Everyone Is With All This Bullshit
The President of the United States stood at a podium for the better part of an hour and delivered rally material to a ballroom of journalists who responded mostly with silence. People checked their phones, ate macarons, and eventually drifted to the lobby and came back for the mentalist.
Republicans in Disarray? An Outbreak of Public Infighting Points to a Looming Disaster
Donald Trump is publicly berating Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Thune is telling the White House to find its own votes. Mike Johnson is complaining that Republicans have made his House majority impossible to manage. Tucker Carlson is accusing Ben Shapiro of steering Trump into a suicidal war. Laura Loomer is attacking Tucker. Marjorie Taylor Greene is choosing sides. House Republicans are voting against Trump’s war while Senate Republicans keep it alive.
MORNING FRAME: Trump Winging It On Iran, MAGA Fight Over Trump's Ear, and Mamdani's Allah Akbar Moment
Morning Frame is a daily trade digest for the news-obsessed and highlights what stories are emerging, which are crossing partisan silos, and which are fading. Powered by Narrative Prism. Friday, July 24, 2026 The House voted to end the war Thursday morning, 214 to 208, and multiple outlets reported a cheer went up in the chamber. But just two hours later the Senate saved the war by two votes, with Mitch McConnell absent for a fifth straight week. Everybody then went home until September.
PROJECTION: Hunter Biden Blasts Jake Tapper Because He Can't Admit What He Did to His Dad
Hunter Biden is on a bit of a reputation reclamation revenge tour, and he did not hold back on his remarkably harsh assessment of Original Sin co-author Jake Tapper. Biden sat down with Don Lemon this week and called the CNN anchor “a complete and utter asshole,” adding that Tapper is a poor journalist, an indecent human being, and “the Brick Tamland of his generation,” a reference to the cognitively deficient Steve Carell character from Anchorman. Then he explained why he felt free to say so.
Why Is the Press Corps Throwing Trump a Party — When He's Going After Reporters' Families?
Somewhere in Manhattan, a federal judge is weighing whether the Justice Department can enforce subpoenas seeking the phone records of New York Times reporters and their relatives. This Friday night, a couple hundred miles south, the president who oversees that very Justice Department will take the podium at the rescheduled White House Correspondents’ Dinner while the press corps, in black tie, toasts the First Amendment.
MORNING FRAME: GOP Funds the War They Won't Defend, Saudi Arabia Gets the Bomb, and ICE Witness Break Ranks
Morning Frame is a daily trade digest for the news-obsessed and highlights which stories are growing, which are crossing partisan silos, and which are being quietly buried. Powered by Narrative Prism.
Mamdani's Demand to Arrest Netanyahu Is Pure Trump Kayfabe
“Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal. The architect of a horrific genocide against the Palestinian people.” That was New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday night, two minutes of direct-to-camera video about the International Criminal Court warrant and what his city intends to do about it when Netanyahu lands for the United Nations General Assembly in September. The actual news was buried in the middle: nothing. The city’s lawyers reviewed every avenue and found none.
The World Cup Final Was the Second Biggest TV Event in America. That's Only Half the Story
More Americans tuned in to watch the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina Sunday afternoon than to watch any other telecast in the past year, save one: the Super Bowl. Nearly 63 million people watched La Roja defeat a cynical defending champion Argentina led by the greatest footballer of all time, Lionel Messi, shattering the previous U.S. record for a World Cup final by 36 million viewers. That number is half the size of the Super Bowl, but more importantly, no other telecast comes close.
MORNING FRAME: Trump's Iran Support Erodes, DOJ Finds Its Voter Fraud Opening, and Hegseth Gets Grilled
Wednesday, July 22, 2026 Morning Frame is a daily trade digest for the news-obsessed and highlights which stories are growing, which are crossing partisan silos, and which are being quietly buried. Powered by Narrative Prism. President Donald Trump insisted he’d hit Iran’s last buried nuclear site on Tuesday.
The World Cup Is Over. America Is Alone Again.
Among the many great things about the 2026 World Cup, the best was the sound of it: strangers not just talking to but often celebrating and dancing with each other, everywhere, all summer, in a country that had nearly forgotten how. That sound stopped Sunday night, and I miss it way more than the football. Which surprises me, because the football gave us a perfect ending. Spain won the World Cup on Sunday, and the football gods got one right.
Trump Lost the Only Guy Who Could Sell His Iran War
A bitterly divided nation is uniting over the most controversial question there is: Donald Trump’s increasingly disastrous war with Iran. The exit consensus has gone bipartisan, with Democrats and some of the most influential voices on the right now making versions of the same argument: declare victory and get out. Even Fox News, the network that helped sell the war to Trump’s base, is no longer buying it. It would be foolish to claim that Senator Lindsey Graham’s sudden death caused that shift.
MORNING FRAME: Trump’s Losing Fox News Over Iran, Dem Socialists Gain, and ICE Splits Into Two Stories
Morning Frame is a daily trade digest for people who’ve already consumed the news: which stories are gaining velocity, which are crossing partisan silos, and which are being quietly buried. Powered by Narrative Prism. Tuesday, July 21, 2026 Monday the Pentagon would not say how many Americans had been wounded in Iran. Tuesday it admitted nearly a hundred.
WTF? Trump Is Now Selling the Presidency by the Millisecond
The President of the United States has found one more thing to sell, and this time it is the sound of his own voice. Trump Media is pitching banks and hedge funds a subscription reportedly priced as high as $100,000 a month, and the product is Donald Trump’s Truth Social posts, delivered milliseconds before the rest of the country sees them. When Trump posts about tariffs or the Fed or Nvidia, markets convulse.
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