From Social Security Spin to Signalgate Shenanigans
Media Experts Break Down Trump 2.0’s First 100 Days of Disinformation
By Nolan Higdon
It’s been a decade since “fake news” became the moral panic of the moment—blamed for breaking democracy and warping reality. The threat was (and is) real. In fact, so-called artificial intelligence (AI) has supercharged fake news, making the fight against misinformation even more critical. But instead of investing in critical media literacy—teaching students how to think, not what to think—politicians and pundits pushed censorship, handing more control to governments and Big Tech.
That backfired.
Cracking down on “fake news” didn’t clean up the internet—it added fuel to the fire. Worse, it gave rise to a new narrative: that the left was using “fake news” to silence President Donald Trump and his MAGA base. This spin muddied the waters, downplaying real threats and ignoring how Trump himself labeled legitimate journalism as “fake” to discredit facts that challenged his power and narrative.
Instead of uniting against disinformation, we polarized around it. Both the left and the right weaponized “fake news” to serve their own ends.
The left gave us breathless Russiagate coverage and downplayed concerns about President Joe Biden’s mental fitness. Instead of mobilizing voters’ frustrations against the donors who influence, shape, and largely control our economy and system of governance, Democrats went on a tear blaming fake news from Russians, the FBI, right-wingers, “Bernie Bros,” sexists, and racists for their party’s electoral ineptitude. Meanwhile, the right fed voters absurd lies—about election fraud and immigrants eating pets—to distract from the fact that it’s billionaires, not the poor or immigrants, rigging the system against working people.
In most eras, such nonsense would be ridiculed into obscurity, but not in America’s hyperpolarized environment. Research confirms it: Americans increasingly seek out news, real or fake, that validates what they already believe. Rather than journalism, too much of the U.S. media system spreads false and incomplete content that confirms audience biases and constructs caricatures of the “other side” that viewers are conditioned to hate. When people align blindly with the media narratives of “their side,” they’re not choosing truth—they’re choosing the version of manipulation that feels most comfortable.
Ten years later, fake news remains a toxic force in democratic life. It thrives in plain sight: Elon Musk falsely claims that millions of dead people are still collecting Social Security checks—while wrongly calling the program a Ponzi scheme. Trump’s allies spread blatant lies about sharing classified information via Signal chats. And billionaire backers like Marc Andreessen and Mark Zuckerberg push the false narrative that agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau aren’t protecting consumers at all—they’re simply tools to attack conservatives.
But censorship isn’t the cure—it’s an anti-democratic shortcut that hands truth over to the powerful. The real solution? Critical media literacy—an approach that goes beyond fact-checking to ask deeper questions:
Who controls the media?
Whose voices get heard—or erased?
What power dynamics are at play?
How can we create media that challenges, rather than repeats, the status quo?
In that spirit, I asked some of the most trusted voices in media and research: What was the most important fake news story of the Trump 2.0 era? Their answers reveal the spin, distortions, and digital sleight of hand shaping our national conversation—and offer a guide for anyone trying to stay sane (and informed) in a democracy drowning in disinformation.
The Fake Trump Policy That Traumatized Millions—And Why It Matters
By Sydney Sullivan, Ph.D. | Educator | Researcher | Writer
One of the most damaging disinformation narratives from the first 100 days of Trump’s second term was the viral false claim that he had announced an end to dual citizenship and would begin denaturalizing and deporting so-called “traitors.” This post came about on March 30th, 2025, and though entirely fabricated, the post gained rapid traction on social media, especially within diasporic and activist communities.
The claim was quickly debunked by multiple fact-checkers, including Lead Stories, which confirmed there was no such announcement from Trump or his administration. The screenshot was designed to look like an official Truth Social post, but no evidence of its existence could be found on Trump's account or through credible news sources. Despite the immediate debunking, the damage was already underway. It wasn’t just the content of the claim that was harmful—it was the emotional fallout it triggered.
This narrative echoed and amplified real fears rooted in lived experiences. Research by Rayburn, et al., (2021) documents the intense emotional distress and trauma that Latino immigrant families—especially children—experience under the constant threat of deportation. Their study found that 5.7 million U.S.-born children live with undocumented parents, and nearly 500,000 children had at least one parent detained or deported in a two-year span. Children described fearing the police, having nightmares, and imagining being abandoned or forced to survive alone. The potential for parental separation disrupts critical developmental domains, including attachment, behavior, and self-concept.
Disinformation like the “traitor deportation” post doesn’t just confuse—it retraumatizes. The Harvard Business Review article “How to Keep Up with the News Without Getting Overwhelmed” (2025) emphasizes how overwhelming and emotionally charged media environments cause political fatigue and disengagement. When misinformation weaponizes trauma, it becomes a mental health issue, not just a truth issue.
These stories underscore the urgent need for trauma-informed media literacy. It’s not enough to teach students to verify sources—educators must also teach them how to recognize emotionally manipulative content, regulate their responses, and understand the very real psychological costs of a disinformation-saturated media landscape.
Discover More From Sydney Sullivan
Instagram @sydneysullivanphd
TikTok @sydneysullivanphd
X (formerly Twitter) @sydneycsullivan
When Disinformation Becomes Law: Trump’s Policy Machine Exposed
By Ian Kivelin Davis, University of California, Berkeley
The most significant example of disinformation is partisan fabrication woven into assumptions of the policymaking process. Misinformation damages public discourse, of course, but falsehoods at the root of policy can have far-reaching consequences for the U.S. legal system. We can see this hidden role of “fake news” in Executive Orders of Trump’s second term.
Shortly after taking office, the new administration issued the Executive Order, “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship.” The order flatly asserts Trump’s partisan attack:
“Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve.”
It is no surprise that the administration uses Executive Orders as a partisan tool. Trump has successfully used state power to exact vengeance on political enemies. As he enlists the levers of state to do so, we can see how his self-serving version of reality thorns its way into policy.
Was the Biden administration violating American speech freedoms as the premise of the order would have us believe? The courts did not agree. Conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett found "[t]he plaintiffs fail, by and large, to link their past social-media restrictions and the defendants’ [Biden administration] communications with the platforms."
Twitter executives, dragged before the Republican-run House Oversight Committee, denied a similar charge that Democrats had coerced Twitter to remove information about President Biden’s son, Hunter.
And yet, there it is, shaping policy priorities for the federal government.
In many ways, this is classic Trump governance. Executive Order as rhetorical attack. Perpetual campaigning; little meaningful governance. When policy grows from misperception or misinformation, it hobbles policy as a solution to American problems.
The bellicose language of the order illustrates something unique about the administration. Exaggeration and partisan attacks replace more precise legal language that is more common in policy documents meant to give direction and legal structure to American citizens and industries.
Misinformation becomes a more urgent problem when falsehoods infect legislative and legal actions. They underscore a MAGA style of governance: reorient the levers of policy-making to serve partisan spectacle. The consequences are concerning. Policy efforts are misdirected. The public is falsely reassured. Government resources are wasted as federal workers try to take action on an issue the president imagined into existence. The irony is thick as Trump sues and cajoles private news media companies. America tilts at Trump’s windmills while real problems go unaddressed.
Discover More From Ian Kivelin Davis
From Ovulation Lessons to Medals for Moms: Inside Trump’s Dystopian War on Women
By Allison Butler, Senior Lecturer and Associate Chair of the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst; and the Vice President of the Media Freedom Foundation.
In the fury of the first 100 days, it is nearly impossible to choose the most significant example of fake news or disinformation from Trump’s second term. How does one make the choice between the illegal kidnapping and deportation of human beings, the dismantling of higher education, and sanctioned destruction of the environment for profit? How does one unpack the dissolution and rebranding of the First Amendment by hard-right conservatives or try to explain that being anti-genocide is not the same as being anti-Semitic? These examples, and many more, illustrate that this time around, Trump is focused on a radical adherence to a cruel and inconceivable truth.
By executive order, bullying, decree, and ignoring pushback, Trump is actually doing so much of what he promised during the campaign. Many people may not have believed he would, or could, go so far; his first 100 days prove that not only will he go that far, he will go farther.
On October 31, 2024, Edward Helmore, in The Guardian, wrote, “Donald Trump took his frequent habit of describing himself as a ‘protector’ of women further … when he declared he would protect them ‘whether the women like it or not.’” Six days later, Trump won the election; 90 some-odd days after that, Caroline Kitchener, in the New York Times, wrote “the Trump administration will embrace a new cultural agenda … to reverse declining birthrates and push conservative family values,” including, among other things, a $5,000 bonus for American mothers after delivery, menstrual cycle classes so that women better understand ovulation, and a ‘national medal of motherhood’ for women who have six or more children. We barely need to read between the lines to parse out what this will mean: Trump will protect women, whether they like it or not, by reducing them to their breeding status (and success.) Does this protection include tax credits? No. Is there mention of LGBTQ+ families who have children? Laughable. Are there protections for women who cannot have children and choose to adopt? Irrelevant. Does it provide women with increased parental leave, flexible work schedules, or subsidized childcare (it’s a lot to ask the neighborhood teenager to babysit six children!)? Nope. Women will be protected because, functionally, they will be unable to leave their homes.
Is this the most important example from Trump’s first 100 days? I’m not sure. But let it serve as a warning that he no longer needs the protection of ‘fake news’ accusations or the massaging of propaganda into reality. While we must absolutely pay close attention to his disinformation, we must also now pay surgical attention to his truth-telling; it may be the most dangerous part of his authoritarian regime.
Discover More From Allison Butler
First They Came for DEI: Inside Trump’s Authoritarian Playbook
By avram anderson, Collection Management Librarian at California State University, Northridge.
Mischa Geracoulis, Managing Editor at Project Censored and The Censored Press, contributor to Project Censored’s State of the Free Press yearbook series, and a Project Judge.
Among Trump’s first executive orders was his mandated revocation of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and personnel in the federal government. The administration’s anti-DEI stance has extended to the removal of gender identity protections across the public and private sectors and within the military. These executive orders have terminated DEI-related grants, research, contracts, and hiring practices, and led to the chilling of academic freedoms at institutions of higher education, K-12 schools, and public museums. Trump’s anti-DEI stance was quickly mirrored by Big Tech, most notably when Meta similarly ended its DEI policies, practices, and protections.
The Trump administration falsely claims that DEI programs are illegal, discriminatory against White people, “un-American”, and that ending the programs ends “tyranny” in the United States. In reality, DEI policies and programs follow constitutional rights, have worked to prevent discrimination and create more opportunities and hospitable work environments for marginalized individuals and communities. Although the majority of Americans support the principles of fairness, diversity, and inclusion, the intentional politicization and semantic distortion of the term “DEI” has been shown to lead to decreased support across political leanings.
The administration’s false claims and anti-DEI actions put hard-won civil liberties in peril, stand in stark contrast to universal human rights, and follow the Project 2025 playbook as well as the more global trend toward authoritarianism. The deliberate erasure of DEI will have real-world consequences such as the curtailing of academic freedom; increased discrimination in the workplace with less avenues for redress; and widening disparities in housing, healthcare access, and other public services. The framing of efforts to uphold DEI in the workplace, educational institutions, journalism, and academic research as ideological threats also serves to deepen political polarization and will further the fragmentation of a shared reality that is required for maintaining a functioning pluralistic democracy.
Discover More From avram anderson
Discover More From Mischa Geracoulis
Tariff Fiction: Trump’s Trade Talk and the Toll of Misinformation
by Frank W Baker, author/media literacy educator
"They (Americans) all understand we're going to have to go through a little tough love, maybe. But they all understand. They're (other countries) ripping us off and they understood it." – President Donald Trump
Trump has made so many false statements, repeated by so many conservative sources and media illiterate people, it was difficult to choose one. But I chose his confusing message about tariffs because it has created THE MOST chaos and confusion domestically and worldwide. CNN aptly summarized the falsehoods in this statement:
"Relentless deception about who pays tariffs: When Trump talked about the tariffs he imposed on Chinese imports in his first presidency, he spoke of how much money “from China” these tariffs generated for the US Treasury. When he talked about the additional tariffs he plans to impose on various other countries during his current presidency, he spoke of a need to “charge them.” At no point did he acknowledge that US importers, not foreign countries, are the ones who pay the actual tariff charges – or that study after study, including one from the federal government’s bipartisan trade commission, found that Americans ended up bearing almost the entire cost of his first-term tariffs on Chinese products."
I think most people had no idea what the tariffs were and who would be affected by them: Look also at what his allies and U.S. allies have said; how the stock market has reacted: up, down based on what he said one day or another. This confusion over tariffs is a prime example of how economic disinformation, when amplified by political allies and echoed by media lacking critical context, can mislead the public and destabilize global markets.
Discover More From Frank Baker
United States of Distraction Continues...For How Long?
By Mickey Huff, Distinguished Director, Park Center for Independent Media; Professor of Journalism, Roy H. Park School of Communications, Ithaca College; Ithaca, NY; President, Media Freedom Foundation; and Director, Project Censored
The second coming of President Donald Trump has brought with it not only the unfulfilled draconian, anti-civil liberties promises of his first administration, but even more from the recent campaign trail, which was chockful of right-wing wish lists from the wildest wet dreams of the Nixon years when Project 2025's parent, the Heritage Foundation, was born.
Regarding a most significant example of fake news or disinformation from the first 100 days of Trump's second term, we might start by reframing that metric to consider the myriad cumulative examples (and effects) of such that serve as this now post-truth zeitgeist. The current administration (and the last one to a measurable degree), along with the knee-benders in the corporate media, are inundating the public with what the late Princeton philosopher Harry Frankfurt accurately called "Bullshit" some 40 years ago and later in the 1980s wrote a small book about the topic (in which he said BS was an even greater enemy of truth than the lie). The current political and news media climate in the US is the example itself. It's BS, in the clinical sense. Liars know the truth and betray it. Bullshitters don't care about either lying or the truth; they only care about their agenda and how to move it forward. We are swimming in BS, to the extent that even gonzo journo Hunter Thompson may have been speechless.
It is not that there is just one major example of fake news; it is that there is this endlessly sprawling archipelago of mis- dis- and malinformation masquerading as journalism (exacerbated by social media platforms) that bridges institutions nearly everywhere, from the corporate world to higher education and the larger decaying civic sphere, including the Fourth Estate itself. It is ironically why an allegedly uninformed public has historically low trust in mass media, as it can still sometimes smell the bullshit from Team Red and Team Blue Two-Minutes Hate programs and hackneyed PR campaigns that pass for news on corporate channels or from Big Tech's algorithmic confirmation bias addled platforms.
But for how long, to what degree will this civic sluggishness continue...and to what end? What are the fake levers of a failed democracy the public might grasp at or pull that would make a difference in dark money-controlled elections? The crisis in journalism today is centered around the failure of the establishment press to meaningfully address this very issue. Independent media outlets have been addressing this for some time but are routinely ignored or attacked and called biased for the trouble...they are even called "fake news."
To wit– We live in a fake news culture where real news about a former Congressman and serial liar (George Santos) getting a seven-year prison sentence is somehow evidence of the system working...when it was the so-called "mainstream" media that failed to cover his lies in the first place (ignoring local coverage), then sensationalizing them later. This is the same corporate, establishment media that helped create the current epistemic meta crisis we now inhabit. Nixon, who told us he was not a crook, could only dream of being a Santos; and Reagan's "revolution" might even be seen as reserved in comparison to the wanton, chaotic "flooding the zone” we've seen these past hundred days. But as the late Gore Vidal quipped, we live in the United States of Amnesia.
This is exactly why we need a fiercely, vibrant and independent muckraking press reporting ethically in the public interest– to tell the public what's going on, as another George-- Seldes put it in the 20th century. People must know what is happening in historical context. It is why we need critical media literacy education across the curriculum. If it feels like to some that we’ve stumbled it into this maelstrom, we didn’t...we were heading here all along, guided by not so invisible hands that media elites didn't want us to see. But if we can reform the press, make it more independent and more public centered than profit centered, we have a fighting chance at achieving larger meaningful changes to our current state.
Discover More From Mickey Huff
The Edge, a publication of the Park Center for Independent Media (PCIM) at Ithaca College.
United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (And What We Can Do About It)
United States Of Distraction: Fighting The Fake News Invasion (2020)
Conclusion: Don’t Just Spot Fake News—Do Something About It
As we brace for what Trump 2.0 means for the media landscape, one thing is clear: fake news isn't going away—it’s evolving. The experts have shared what they believe are the most important misinformation moments, but what about you?
📣 Think you’ve spotted the most important fake news story? Drop it in the comments—we're listening.
Being media literate isn’t just about spotting lies—it’s about questioning narratives, seeking context, and knowing where to look when things don’t add up. Start now. Be curious, be critical, and be loud about it.
✅ Want trusted Media Literacy tools? See Nolan’s favorites—just click here.
NEW Episode of Nolan’s Disinfo Detox Podcast (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeart, and YouTube - please like, follow, and subscribe).
In this episode of The Disinfo Detox, host Nolan Higdon sits down with media literacy mavens Dr. Allison Butler (UMass Amherst) and Sydney Sullivan (San Diego State University) to crack open their brand new resource guide: "Teaching Critical AI Literacy: Tools and Strategies for the Classroom"
This is frighteningly true! "Rather than journalism, too much of the U.S. media system spreads false and incomplete content that confirms audience biases and constructs caricatures of the “other side” that viewers are conditioned to hate."
Climate change denial has to be the worst disinformation or Bullshit. Reporting on Trump's desire to "buy Greenland" or make Canada the 51st State, if it lacks context about the worst-case warming scenarios, is confusing. The loss of a stable climate that has the capacity to support human civilization and planetary biodiversity is hard to grapple with and therefore the latest science, which is world-changing news, remains under-reported.