AS NEGOTIATORS from around the world gathered in Paris last December to draft an agreement to slow down climate change, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz was holding a hearing in Washington, D.C., to highlight the work of climate skeptics.
The hearing allowed Cruz to rail about “suppression of dissent, driven politically by global warming alarmists” and equate the widely accepted science of climate change with “partisan claims that run contrary to the science and data and evidence.”
Cruz was ridiculed in the mainstream press. NPR’s Steve Inskeep said: “If climate change were a TV show, [Cruz’s] hearing in Washington yesterday would be counterprogramming.”
But in one way, the hearing made perfect sense.
Next week, coal champion and Murray Energy CEO Bob Murray is hosting a fundraiser for Cruz. Murray didn’t go so far as to actually endorse Cruz — keeping his options open with Donald Trump — but he noted in an interview with The Hill that Cruz is the best candidate on coal. And he specifically cited the December 8 hearing as a reason for his material, if half-hearted, support.
Murray is the sine qua non of climate denying. The coal CEO has been a leader in the legal battle against the centerpiece of Obama’s climate policy, the Clean Power Plan, which would encourage states to switch their electricity generation away from coal and was temporarily halted by the Supreme Court last month.
He’s even gone so far as to threaten to sue the EPA over its factually rooted stance that climate change is real and caused by people.
In a Republican field where both major candidates have defended the continued burning of coal and denied that human-caused climate change is a real problem, Murray’s support indicates that Cruz has won a race for the bottom that might have been closer had he not gone all-in on Capitol Hill.
IT’S EVEN WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT.
What we’re seeing right now from Donald Trump is a full-on authoritarian takeover of the U.S. government.
This is not hyperbole.
Court orders are being ignored. MAGA loyalists have been put in charge of the military and federal law enforcement agencies. The Department of Government Efficiency has stripped Congress of its power of the purse. News outlets that challenge Trump have been banished or put under investigation.
Yet far too many are still covering Trump’s assault on democracy like politics as usual, with flattering headlines describing Trump as “unconventional,” “testing the boundaries,” and “aggressively flexing power.”
The Intercept has long covered authoritarian governments, billionaire oligarchs, and backsliding democracies around the world. We understand the challenge we face in Trump and the vital importance of press freedom in defending democracy.
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
IT’S BEEN A DEVASTATING year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
I’M BEN MUESSIG, The Intercept’s editor-in-chief. It’s been a devastating year for journalism — the worst in modern U.S. history.
We have a president with utter contempt for truth aggressively using the government’s full powers to dismantle the free press. Corporate news outlets have cowered, becoming accessories in Trump’s project to create a post-truth America. Right-wing billionaires have pounced, buying up media organizations and rebuilding the information environment to their liking.
In this most perilous moment for democracy, The Intercept is fighting back. But to do so effectively, we need to grow.
That’s where you come in. Will you help us expand our reporting capacity in time to hit the ground running in 2026?
We’re independent of corporate interests. Will you help us?
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