Politico is owned by Axel Springer, an extreme right wing German publishing house that makes its employees sign loyalty oaths to the transatlantic alliance and NATO specifically, I believe, and Israel. And in turn, Axel Springer is majority stockholders KKR. We've been incredibly aggressive about covering private equity, probably more so than basically any other publication around. It's almost as if the candidate royalties of 2020 are indeed proxies for ideological commitments rather than just arbitrary personal grievances, right? Exactly. Well, we always like to end our news briefs with a obscure John Delaney reference. We'll do the same this time.
In this News Brief, we discuss the initial lack of coverage of the devastating February 3rd train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio; the coverage of the lack of coverage; the GOP's "white genocide" exploitation; Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg's defensiveness; and the real human stakes of decades of bipartisan deregulation and union-busting.
Our guest is journalist Matthew Cunningham-Cook (@matthewccook5), a writer and researcher covering health care, retirement policy and capital markets. He is currently a reporter at The Lever.