We begin this hour with breaking news.. We’ve just learned that Senate republicans have just elected John Thune to be the next Senate Majority leader. 

Thune will now replace Mitch McConnell despite President-Elect Trump’s endorsement of Florida Senator Rick Scott. 

The news comes after two massive announcements by Trump for the Department of Defense and the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. 

We’re going to talk about it all. 

I’m Ben Swann and this is “Truth In Media.” 

That is President elect Donald Trump’s pick to be secretary of defense. Fox News host Pete Hegseth.  Hegseth is no stranger to the screen, has a huge online following and has been a strong advocate for veterans.  but critics in the Pentagon and defense world are buzzing. 

They’re questioning his experience, even wondering if he’s prepared to take on the massive role of leading the U.S. military. 

Hegseth is a Princeton Graduate.  He was commissioned as an infantry officer in the Army National Guard, serving overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as at Guantanamo Bay.

Hegseth has openly spoken about Zionism as being akin to Americanism.. And has also urged President Trump to pardon U.S. service members who had been accused of war crimes. He advocated for the servicemen’s cases on his Fox News show and online.

But it is his stance against wokeism inside the U.S. Military that may have many people in the Pentagon worried.  

One announcement that is kind of flying under the radar is  President-elect Donald Trump nominating John Ratcliffe— the former Director of National Intelligence, to take the reins at the CIA. 

This is actually a very big deal.  Much more so than most people are giving it credit for. 

Ratcliffe is no friend of the Russia collusion narrative. In fact, he called the entire investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election a “hoax”. 

Remember.. It was the CIA itself that created so many of these false narratives surrounding Russia collusion. 

Here’s a clip of Ratcliffe  when he questioned former special agent Peter Strzok on Capitol Hill. 

Critics are already raising alarms, fearing that this pick is just another move to root out Trump’s political enemies within the intelligence community. If it is… good. They say they’re worried about a political purge on anyone who dared to challenge Trump’s first presidency.

We can only hope that it is… but not just that.. But this move to get control of deep state agencies like the CIA, NSA and FBI is aggressively underway.  These are rouge agencies that have been allowed to act without accountability and with impunity for decades.   They have undermined Presidents all the way back to John F. Kennedy.  They may have killed Kennedy.  The CIA has worked to overthrow governments all over the world and appears to have used those tactics here over the past decade to sow domestic unrest.  And that is the real reason these deep state actors are so afraid.  They are terrified of accountability. 

Meanwhile, Trump’s bringing the guy he’s called “The cutter in chief” Elon Musk for the “Department of “Government Efficiency.” He’ll also be joined by Vivek Ramaswamy. 

Ramaswamy famously said up to 80 percent of Federal bureaucrats can and should be fired. Take a listen.  

Now, according to the announcement, this is a temporary gig and that the department of government efficiency should be complete with their work by July 4, 2026. 

Now with the post-election hype you may have forgotten about Hurricane Helene which ravaged places like Tennessee and North Carolina in Late September. 

We covered the incredibly inept response by FEMA which bordered on the malicious at times with images like these of federal helicopters disrupting volunteer relief sites.  This video.. When we released it several weeks ago was called disinformation and blocked on social sites.  

Well it turns out that not only is this video real… but the effort behind it to punish voters who might support Trump was very real as well.

In group chats FEMA employees were directed to “implement best practices” which included the directive to “avoid homes advertising trump”. 

One employee, Marn’i Washington, was fired, but she claims that she was scapegoated and that this was a wider policy within FEMA to avoid Trump supporting households. 

Joining us now for more on this is Amy Lepore, Chief Operating Officer at Dissident Media. 

Welcome Amy. 

1. Amy, this is a huge bombshell with clear proof that FEMA was acting in a politically biased way in its relief efforts. Are we not hearing more about this because the news coverage right now is circulating around President-Elect Trump’s cabinet picks?
2. Could and should this be brought to Trump’s attention? He was on the ground in North Carolina and in other areas affected by Hurricane Helene and he himself was critical of the relief efforts. Shouldn’t there be a cleaning house of FEMA as part of the agenda to streamline the US bureaucracy?
3. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy were recently appointed to lead the new Department of Government Efficiency. Will they be able to massively downsize the US bureaucracy as they say they want to, and is this perhaps the key to removing the bias so much of the bureaucracy has towards Democrats and the left?

If the election was bad for anyone it was really really bad for legacy media… who were not only left completely wrong in every prediction they made.. But as a result are hemorrhaging even more viewers.. If that’s possible.  

CNN’s  Chris Wallace just announced he’s leaving the network, claiming streaming is “where it’s at.”  

Wait.. Chris Wallace says he’s going to move into independent broadcasting more like Joe Rogan.  Are you kidding?  77 year old Chris Wallace is not going to attract any kind of audience in the podcasting world. But ok… go for it. Because  if the numbers tell us anything, it’s that more people are tuning out from mainstream media than ever before.

Since the election, CNN’s primetime viewership has dropped 30 percent,… what’s 30 percent of zero?  while MSNBC took a massive 54 percent hit compared to last year. But over at Fox News? They saw a 60 percent spike in ratings.

Surprised? CNN and MSNBC have been telling viewers nonstop for the past year that Trump would not win.  That he had no following.  And that Harris would save the country from Hitler.  They were so spectacularly wrong.. That even the most faithful viewers can’t take it anymore. 

So, will anything change? A few anchors may jump ship, but will these networks actually evolve? It’s not likely 

That’s because these networks are trapped in their elite bubbles, refusing to acknowledge a new generation of viewers who just aren’t buying what they’re selling.  And, it’s even worse than that.  CNN could be fixed.  MSNBC could be fixed.. But in order to do that… you have to get all the government agency spooks who are working there out the door.  You have to cut off big pharma and stop worrying about which parties you’ll be invited to.  You just have to tell the truth. And unfortunately for them.. That may be too big of a lift. 

That’s our show, you can catch all of our latest coverage, Check us out on X @Truth_InMedia and you can watch all of our full episodes on Truthinmedia.com.