How much is ‘Truss Social’ learning from Truth Social?

Zuckerberg, Musk, Trump… Truss? Cockburn was surprised to hear from across the Pond that Liz Truss – who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom for just 49 days – had plans to set up a social media site. “What I am doing is establishing a new free speech network, which will be uncensored and uncancellable, to actually talk about the issues people don’t want to talk about,” the former PM said at a conference in England last month.

The move would see Truss compete with X, Parler, Gettr, Gab and, yes, Truth Social, Trump’s social media app. How will she pull it off? With some American assistance, it seems. Cockburn understands Truss’s network is set to be part of the media conglomerate John Solomon and Mark Meckler are working to establish. Perhaps parading around the Trump inauguration in a MAGA hat actually paid off. Truss did not respond to a request for comment.

“Liz Truss is taken as seriously in America as she was in Britain,” one MAGA insider with knowledge of both countries told Cockburn. “All we know about her is she shows up at every conference trying to sell some book. Last time she was in a room of MAGA people, everyone thought she was there to take coffee orders.”

Solomon is the founder of JustTheNews – and SEC records list Solomon’s firm TAME as a vendor for digital ad sales on Truth Social. Solomon is also in the good graces of President Trump, who has regularly shared Solomon’s articles on the app. Meckler is one of the co-founders of the Tea Party movement and also served as interim CEO of Parler in 2021.

Earlier this month, the American Thinker published a blog saying that “a well-financed effort is underway to acquire several major conservative outlets, including Human Events, the Post Millennial and the Daily Caller, to roll them up under a single owner.” The site’s managing editor Andrea Widburg names Solomon as being behind the effort – and says that while she has “no beef” with Solomon, he is “a man with a vision that he pursues relentlessly, but no matter how much money or authority he gets, he never fulfills that vision.” The same website published a rebuttal from Solomon this week, in which he contests several of Widburg’s characterizations of him and his prospective donors. He renews his “request for a retraction” (how free speech-y!). Yet Solomon also refers to “the company Mark Meckler and I am seeking to build” and does not push back on the description of the proposed roll-up. Human Events and the Post Millennial already share ownership.

Given how initial media reports branded the former PM’s planned site “Truss Social,” Cockburn finds it intriguing that someone with a role at Trump’s site is set to be involved. How many lessons will Solomon’s new venture take from his previous experience with the President’s app?

Cockburn reached out to Solomon, Truth Social and the approached outlets for comment – and will update you if he hears back…

On our radar

MUSK YOU LEAVE? The White House is having a farewell press conference for departing senior advisor Elon Musk shortly. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt and her deputy Margo Martin marked the occasion by posing in Trump’s Tesla.

IF YOU KNEW SUSIE The FBI are probing an attempt to impersonate White House chief of staff Susie Wiles through texts and calls to senior Republicans.

ERNST AND OLD Senator Joni Ernst told an Iowa town hall that “we all are going to die” during a heated discussion about the reconciliation bill’s cuts to Medicard.

MAHA’s ‘cite’ for sore eyes

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services released its “MAHA Report” two weeks ago – and Cockburn commends the department’s art directors. The fonts are to die for! There’s just one problem with the dossier, which addresses chronic diseases among American children: it’s riddled with discrepancies and cites several sources that don’t exist.

The report asserts the multi-generational deterioration of health among young Americans is a direct result of ultra-processed ingredients, synthetic chemicals and over-medication. However NOTUS found seven of the cited papers seem solely to exist in the report itself, including one titled, “Changes in mental health and substance abuse among US adolescents during the Covid-19 pandemic.”

NOTUS reached out to epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, who was listed as an author for the article, and she denied any knowledge of a paper under that title. “The paper cited is not a real paper that I or my colleagues were involved with,” she said. “We’ve certainly done research on this topic, but did not publish a paper in JAMA Pediatrics on this topic with that co-author group, or with that title.”

During Thursday’s White House press briefing, Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the errors in the report are due to “formatting issues,” adding that the report will be updated. Leavitt did not address speculation that AI could have led to errors in the document. “Minor citation and formatting errors have been corrected,” HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said Thursday. Cockburn can’t wait to see which supercomputer RFK deploys in his fight to defeat autism…

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