Steve Bannon, Tucker Carlson and … Liz Truss? Inside the former PM’s audition for Maga | Liz Truss

Liz Truss, Britain’s shortest-serving prime minister, began the first episode of her YouTube show with a promise to unmask “bad actors” trying to bring down Britain, the US and Europe. He declared that he would reveal “how the international network of leftists is working to subvert democracy and the will of the people.”

Despite his somber monologue, Truss pointed to hopes from across the Atlantic. “We will look at the Trump revolution and see how it can be achieved in Britain,” he said. “We will talk to the leading figures of the Maga movement.”

There was one particularly enthusiastic supporter before the start of the show. “This is the beginning of a revolution of sorts,” said controversial veteran US journalist John Solomon. Conservative platform Just the News will host new podcasts from the former prime minister.

British traveling companions, including a pro-Reform advisor featured in Maga media outlets, also helped her organize the Liz Truss Show. Its staging is competent, if basic. Truss reached 10,000 subscribers in its first week, and its debut had 67,000 views during the same period.

It’s a humble beginning, but in order to make common cause with Solomon, Truss is thrust into a well-developed conservative ecosystem that generates and reinforces Maga’s talking points. His obsessions include alleged censorship by the mainstream media and a desire to eliminate a conspiratorial “deep state”; Truss blames this for the rapid end of his disastrous premiership.

“Just News isn’t well known beyond the Maga verse, but there’s a lot of seriousness there, a big part of which is due to Solomon making comments on Maga platforms. [Steve] “I referenced Bannon’s War Room and even interviewed Trump,” said Alex Hinton, an anthropology professor at Rutgers University who has studied the Maga movement closely.

Truss’ attempt to import Maga media to England brought him closer to controversial figures such as Solomon.

He founded Just the News following criticism after he was accused of spreading false stories about Joe Biden’s anti-corruption efforts in Ukraine, as well as controversial stories about him. Former US Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.

His claims were further amplified in pro-Trump media when Solomon appeared as a regular guest on Sean Hannity’s influential Fox News show. Trump personally supported Solomon’s reporting.

Solomon made his claims about Ukraine in a series of columns he wrote for the political newspaper Hill, for which he was previously relabeled as a columnist. after colleagues complained about his work. His allegations were central to Trump’s demand that the Ukrainians investigate the Bidens in 2019. These demands led to impeachment charges against Trump. The Senate later acquitted the president.

Weeks after Solomon left Hill in October 2019, the news outlet announced it was reviewing Solomon’s work on Ukraine. IT concluded Solomon used unreliable sources and said he “failed to identify important details about key Ukrainian sources, including the fact that they were charged or under investigation.”

Solomon did not respond to the Guardian’s requests for comment on Hill’s findings or his support for Truss’s new programme. But, he said before: “I stand behind every article I write.”

Solomon’s media coverage is a sign of the conservative ecosystem Truss is entering. He explained his support for Truss’ project on a show he co-hosts on Real America’s Voice, a right-wing cable channel hosted by Maga phenomenon Steve Bannon and featuring Tucker Carlson. Truss had already interviewed Bannon on one of his first podcasts.

By linking up with Solomon and Just the News, Truss has become a minor player in a much larger network of conservative media outlets that often amplify each other’s content.

Solomon’s own podcast and Real America’s Voice show have repeatedly hosted figures such as right-wing influencer Mike Benz, whose criticism of USAID has been cited by Elon Musk as justification for shutting down the foreign aid agency.

Benz mentioned Conspiracies involving George Soros and USAID says there is an “industrial censorship complex” that opposes conservative voices. He spread the wrong idea Taylor Swift was a “psychological operation” element for the Pentagon.

Earlier this year, Benz conducted an exclusive interview with Marco Rubio, in which the secretary of state announced that he would be shutting down the Center for Global Engagement, which focuses on combating foreign disinformation. Benz accused it of anti-conservative censorship. Benz did not respond to requests for comment.

Although Truss’s stilted style and political travails have drawn ridicule in Britain, some US observers have not ruled out his attempts to reinvent himself as the British arm of Maga media.

“You have to take people like that seriously, even if you don’t want to take them literally,” said Rob Flaherty, deputy campaign manager for Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign who served in the Biden White House.

“You’ve seen how President Trump is leveraging this ecosystem to get his message out in 2024. Certainly that ecosystem is exporting abroad and influencing the conversation. It seems relatively clear to me that the conditions in the UK are similar to the conditions that allow this alternative media ecosystem to thrive here.”

Alan Finlayson, professor of political and social theory at the University of East Anglia, said the online conservative ecosystem was already making an impact in Britain.

He said digital media knows no boundaries. “There is a gentle environment in which things flow, sometimes in an extreme form, sometimes in a less extreme form, but interconnected.”

Hinton said the recent growth of the online right in the UK meant “the potential to have a growing impact is significant”.

“Both Truss and [the Reform UK leader, Nigel] “Farage recently attended the Conservative Political Action Conference, where I watched Maga hit talking points before the king of Maga, Trump,” he said. “Maga, who claims to be anti-globalisation, has become a global hegemon.”

Truss’s first show contained signs that he hoped to appeal to American audiences as well, with references unlikely to appeal to a British audience: “We’re poorer than the Mississippi now,” he said at one point. “It’s like Huckleberry Finn without the steamboat.”

Solomon has been attempting to establish an alternative conservative media network for years. He was instrumental in founding the Informing America Foundation (IAF), a little-known nonprofit group that funnels millions to conservative media across the United States.

The IAF also funded Bentley Media Group, the parent company of Just the News. According to 2023 tax returns. Funds a number of domestic US conservatives mediaIncluding key swing states. The IAF and Just the News did not respond to requests for comment on whether they were financially supporting Truss’ new show. A representative for Truss also did not respond to requests for comment.

Solomon said last year that the IAF now “has an ecosystem”. [reaches] more than 120 million Americans a month.” He said he has no official role in the IAF but shares office space with Just the News.

Hinton said Truss’ arrival was a “marriage of media convenience” for both parties. “This gives Just News an international and UK foot in the door – and its British status will bring a degree of cosmopolitan prestige to the network,” he said. “Meanwhile, Truss seizes the opportunity to renew its image.”

Advising Truss on the program is Joseph Robertson, a political strategist and Reform member who spent time in the US. Appearing on Real America’s Voice last month, Robertson said Britain would effectively have “communist rule” if the government’s digital identity policy continued.

Like Truss, Robertson supports the collapse of the “administrative deep state.” He also advocated for Britain to become “Dubai on the Thames”, with deregulation and stricter law and order.

In preparing her show, Truss appears to be following Solomon’s advice on how to bring Maga media to the UK. He told him that “one of the smartest things” that prominent conservative funders such as the late Bernie Marcus, a co-founder of Home Depot, and Richard Uihlein, the billionaire owner of an office supply company, did was develop an alternative “communication system” when Trump first took office.

“We have created a communications infrastructure that can transcend legacy media and get the word out,” he told him.

Some believe Truss’ biggest problem may be that he’s not very good at the intermediate level. “Successful people will have charisma and the ability to attract attention,” said Craig Oliver, David Cameron’s former communications chief. “I would say this was an attack against him.”

“He was never good at it,” Finlayson said. “When you try to be dramatic and scary it’s ridiculous.”

But Flaherty said critics should be careful about discounting Truss’ chances of finding validation in the Maga universe. “There is no shortage of comeback stories in the alternative media ecosystem,” he said. “It is always possible to rebrand yourself when you surrender to a rabid political fan base.”