A rather unfortunate aspect of American discourse is the notion that a person’s adeptness at moving other people’s money around — or being an early investor in PayPal — is proof of near-infallible genius. It’s an unspoken yet understood maxim among many that the exorbitantly wealthy are also endowed with an encyclopedic knowledge, rare political courage, ideological independence and an almost extraterrestrial level of sage wisdom.
Bill Ackman, the billionaire hedge fund guy turned terminally online MAGA activist, seems to believe he possesses all of these qualities. Now, he thinks he’s got the scoop of the century on his hands — a certain death knell for trust in the media and other institutions. The story that Ackman is relentlessly pushing — for which no remotely credible evidence exists — is that ABC News conspired with Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign to provide sample questions and assurances of favoritism toward Harris prior to the presidential debate earlier this month. And this — not Harris’ competence and coherence or former President Donald Trump’s temper and nonsense — is Trumpists’ explanation for why Harris was able to wipe the floor with Trump at the debate.
On Tuesday, Ackman did his best impression of Alex Jones demanding to speak to the manager...
The conspiracy theory was also amplified by many prominent voices in the online right: Elon Musk, Megyn Kelly, Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Free Press columnist Abigail Shrier and high-profile MAGA influencers Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson (both of whom recently claimed they were unwitting victims of what federal prosecutors allege was a Russian government campaign to pay them millions of dollars). As hyperpartisans will say when they lack evidence but are blindly driven by motivated reasoning, “Big if true!”
The whole thing appears to have been sparked by purported screengrabs of an alleged affidavit from an ABC News “whistleblower,” who supposedly came forward prior to the debate to lay out the grand conspiracy. According to Mediaite, the screengrabs originated from a site called County Local News. NewsGuard, a news and information reliability ratings company, included the site in its report about AI-generated content farms and noted its penchant for headlines that “read like that of an AI parody.”
As Mediate notes: “Anything that could be used to verify the accusations in this ‘affidavit’ is blacked out: the so-called whistleblower’s name and all identifying details, the signatures, and the name, license number, and seal of the notary public. Any basic computer and printer from the past thirty years could have been used to type up this exact document, print it out, scrawl some signatures on it, and then black out sections. Posting a scan of it online proves nothing except that someone owned a computer and printer and had a little free time.”
The source material was so unconvincing that even the ultra-MAGA Gateway Pundit — which has defended itself from multiple election-related disinformation lawsuits — declared the purported affidavit “a complete hoax” and warned its readers to not even click on the site from which the theory originated.
But in various posts on X over the past week, Ackman — who did not respond to MSNBC’s request for comment — said he “find[s] the allegations credible as written.” Because the ABC News debate moderators did not respond to unattributed allegations originating from a fake news site, he argues, “one must draw a negative inference.” ABC News later denied the evidence-free allegations, naturally, but that didn’t end Ackman’s quest for justice.
On Tuesday, Ackman did his best impression of Alex Jones demanding to speak to the manager: “Come to think of it, I am going to alert the @SEC directly about @Disney, @ABC and their misleading response to the whistleblower’s accusations about the presidential debate.”
Ackman’s single-minded insistence on running with illogical allegations from some guy on Twitter and a virus-riddled AI spam site — simply because those allegations claim to impugn a mainstream news outlet — is laughable. Like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and any number of right-wing podcasters, his reflexive contrarianism commits him to the belief that institutions and experts are, by definition, wrong, regardless of the evidence.
Ackman’s single-minded insistence on running with illogical allegations from some guy on Twitter and a virus-riddled AI spam site...is laughable.
But as amusing as Ackman’s behavior may be, he’s legitimately dangerous. Just as Musk, Trump, JD Vance and other hugely influential right-wing activists did to justify their slanders of Haitian immigrants in Ohio, Ackman is taking his cues from internet noise. This is the opposite of intellectualism and honest inquiry. But it’s not the only reason Ackman’s “just asking questions” crusade poses a threat.
Like his allies Musk and Trump, Ackman talks a big game about supporting free expression while leveraging his billionaire bully pulpit against speech he doesn’t like — for instance, when he threatened lawsuits against a news publication for reporting in ways he didn’t appreciate. Some of his allies on the MAGA right are aggressively pushing for the Supreme Court to reconsider the landmark 1964 Sullivan v. New York Times decision, which created the current standard of “actual malice” that government officials, public figures and other high-profile plaintiffs suing news organizations for defamation must meet.
Ironically, thanks to the high bar set by the Sullivan decision, Ackman is unlikely to face any consequences for spreading unproven allegations to defame the character of any number of people at ABC News and with the Harris campaign. But there’s something insidious about one of the richest people on the planet pushing literal garbage into the political discourse right before an election, while also using the weight of his fortune to legally threaten news organizations that publish things he would rather not see in public.