Something very strange is happening at CNN.
You know it's bad when even the 'fake news' network is asking questions about an anti-Trump story that made the rounds earlier this week before getting stealth-nuked at ABC.
RedState covered the election-season hit job earlier this week for a brief overview.
It's in this context that we get a story from ABC News that accused Trump's sons of having invested in a company that was awarded a major government contract (until the story was abruptly taken down). [...]
And tech entrepreneur Palmer Luckey, who founded Anduril Industries, unleashed a scathing rebuttal to an ABC report that was subsequently deleted on X.
Luckey unloaded on the deleted report on X.
@ABC is refusing to correct this lie. @ByNathanLee's "analysis" is totally bogus, and he knows it, because Anduril provided him with the actual numbers - 1789 Capital has only invested a total of $50M in Anduril, and this so-called "major stake" is about 1/1000th of the company. The claim of $6B+ in "active or promised government contracts" is also a lie. Most of that amount is in hypothetical contract ceilings, which are (by design) larger than the government or the contractor expect to transact. The problem for Nathan and ABC, which they also know, is that a bunch of people, including the Governor, assumed they were telling the truth and acted on it. Admitting they got this wrong would make a legal judgement against them trivially easy. And so they lie.
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) October 7, 2026
Here is what the Anduril founder had to say about it.
@ABC is refusing to correct this lie. @ByNathanLee's "analysis" is totally bogus, and he knows it, because Anduril provided him with the actual numbers - 1789 Capital has only invested a total of $50M in Anduril, and this so-called "major stake" is about 1/1000th of the company.
The claim of $6B+ in "active or promised government contracts" is also a lie. Most of that amount is in hypothetical contract ceilings, which are (by design) larger than the government or the contractor expect to transact.
The problem for Nathan and ABC, which they also know, is that a bunch of people, including the Governor, assumed they were telling the truth and acted on it. Admitting they got this wrong would make a legal judgement against them trivially easy. And so they lie.
ABC News does not appear to have issued any public retraction or correction to this story, according to a search of its affiliated websites.
This is something that was noted by CNN senior politics reporter Andrew Kaszynski, prompting further pushback from... Brian Stelter?
I'm told the article was "published prematurely." More to come, because that is obviously not a sufficient explanation.
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 9, 2026
"This is absolutely wild per Status — ABC News completely retracted this story like two days ago just totally nuked it," Kaczynski remarked. "No note, no explanation , no comment. It had been shared by tons of top lawmakers and democratic officials."
"I'm told the article was 'published prematurely.' More to come, because that is obviously not a sufficient explanation," Stelter added.
Things that make you go 'hmmm.' Maybe that Paramount takeover of Warner Brothers Discovery is reaping rewards for the news-consuming public, already? We will have to wait and see.
But as for its fellow team-blue-ride-or-die legacy media network ABC News, tech founder Palmer Luckey is going scorched earth on it.
@ABC News continues to lie, this time privately to their friends in the press. This was a coordinated influence operation planted by our competition, not "premature publication". 7:01 AM October 7th, story goes live. Within minutes, dozens of high-profile commentators, politicians, and news outlets are sharing it with tens of millions of followers. We immediately contact ABC and demand they correct their false claims - after multiple rounds of refusal, they finally make a single one-word grammar edit. The editors stand by the reporting and insist the false claims are true. Finally, eight hours after I was forced to call them out publicly, they delete everything. The editors hide all the comments, the author deletes his X account, and the story is completely wiped from their website without any explanation, directly violating SPJ ethics standards and ABC's own internal rules. ABC is currently running a coverup operation, ignoring all of our requests for correction/retraction while telling their buddies to spread the word that this was nothing more than a CMS publication timeline error.
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) October 9, 2026
This was one of Luckey's latest rants on the hit job.
@ABC News continues to lie, this time privately to their friends in the press. This was a coordinated influence operation planted by our competition, not "premature publication".
7:01 AM October 7th, story goes live. Within minutes, dozens of high-profile commentators, politicians, and news outlets are sharing it with tens of millions of followers. We immediately contact ABC and demand they correct their false claims - after multiple rounds of refusal, they finally make a single one-word grammar edit. The editors stand by the reporting and insist the false claims are true.
Finally, eight hours after I was forced to call them out publicly, they delete everything. The editors hide all the comments, the author deletes his X account, and the story is completely wiped from their website without any explanation, directly violating SPJ ethics standards and ABC's own internal rules.
ABC is currently running a coverup operation, ignoring all of our requests for correction/retraction while telling their buddies to spread the word that this was nothing more than a CMS publication timeline error.
He also remarked that "ABC won't talk to me in person even when I track down a news truck full of reporters!"
ABC won't talk to me in person even when I track down a news truck full of reporters! https://t.co/rcDlp8e04d
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) October 10, 2026
When Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney commented on the flap, he brought up a classic South Park episode.
@TimSweeneyEpic @ABC I have not thought of that scene in forever, but instantly burst out laughing. For those not so blessed as Tim and I: https://t.co/n6Kvpi9vGv
— Palmer Luckey (@PalmerLuckey) October 10, 2026
It's gotten so bad for the fake news media's credibility that even CNN is complaining about anti-Trump hit jobs.
That's more unreal than any South Park episode could ever be.
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