On July 28, conservative news outlet Newsmax announced a new partnership with Facebook’s parent company, Meta. They joined the ranks of networks such as Fox, CNN, USA TODAY, and more, providing their news as data to train Meta’s AI models. Usually, one would welcome more diverse datasets for AI to use. MS NOW, on the other hand, was terrified of expanded conservative representation. On this Monday’s Money, Power, Politics with Stephanie Ruhle, MS NOW ran a segment condemning the agreement between the two companies and smearing Newsmax.
The show’s titular host, Stephanie Ruhle, began by citing a past scandal involving Newsmax:
I want to point out that other news organizations have similar deals with Meta, but Newsmax is a far-right outlet that paid a huge settlement with Dominion for airing lies about the 2020 election.
MS NOW is seething that Meta is adding Newsmax to their list of sources for their AI models. They resorted to smearing Newsmax's coverage as "garbage" and untrustworthy.
Jealous much? MS NOW isn't on the list, likely because Meta recognizes their "news" as blatantly partisan. pic.twitter.com/vc0ng5PaR9— James Waterman (@jwatermaniv) August 3, 2026
By attacking Newsmax in this manner, Ruhle implied that other networks, such as MS NOW or CNN (who has an existing deal with Meta) were more trustworthy. She referenced the Newsmax settlement with Dominion, ignoring that leftist news networks have often landed themselves in scandals and have been forced to make settlements of their own.
In much more recent memory than Newsmax’s Dominion settlement, MS NOW itself was sued by a Georgia doctor, Mahendra Amin, for defamation. Unwilling to stand by their destructive words, MS NOW was forced to settle. CNN tried sticking to their guns in a similar defamation case, and ended up forking up millions in reparations.
Are these networks somehow more trustworthy than Newsmax?
Seemingly blind to their hypocrisy, MS NOW continued their diatribe against Newsmax. CNBC senior economics writer Matt Peterson likened Newsmax’s coverage to “garbage” and claimed it would rub off on the AI model:
What is the expression, garbage in, garbage out? Right? I mean, you're training these things on, sort of, on news that you know is probably not true. You're creating a model that is going to produce, you know, false information for people.
Aside from the blatant dismissal of Newsmax’s value as a news network, Peterson also ignored crucial details regarding AI’s trustworthiness. Most AI has been blatantly biased for years towards progressive and liberal stances, partially thanks to their many of their sources being leftist news networks. MS NOW is just mad that Newsmax is just getting a seat at the table.
And it’s not like MS NOW hasn’t been putting out garbage themselves! Just a handful examples from recent memory include: equating Trump and ICE to Nazis, labelling the Fauci hearing a “show trial”, calling the DSA a moderating force, and that’s not even mentioning the things they failed to cover: for example, they downplayed Michigan Senate candidate El-Sayed’s radicalism and avoided covering any of the initial Platner scandals.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to view.
MS NOW’s Money, Power, Politics with Stephanie Ruhle
August 3, 2026
09:36:28 a.m. Eastern
(...)
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Before we go to break, there's a story I want to make sure people catch. We learned that far-right media outlet Newsmax announced a deal with Meta, the parent company to Facebook, to help train its AI models. I want to point out that other news organizations have similar deals with Meta, but Newsmax is a far-right outlet that paid a huge settlement with Dominion for airing lies about the 2020 election.
What is your reaction to this? Because this is being announced as Meta is really on this beauty makeover glow up tour of “no, no, no. We are the AI company that cares about humanity. We are cutting ribbons and opening schools and kissing babies.” This one feels a little different, no?
MATT PETERSON: What is the expression, garbage in, garbage out? Right? I mean, you're training these things on, sort of, on news that you know is probably not true. You're creating a model that is going to produce, you know, false information for people. Like that's how you're choosing to spend your money and that's what you're going to get.
RON INSANA: Well, even with the best of data, we still know that artificial intelligence, you know, can't see around corners. We're still learning off human intelligence. So the predictive value, particularly when you plug in, as was just said, you know, garbage, you're- the output is going to be inferior.
And so the whole AI premise is that the output of all this is going to be smarter than we are. Well, that depends what you put in. So if you're putting in lies, you're going to get lies back. And that's going to be problematic as well, because will people rely on it if they can't trust it?
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Gentlemen, we have to pay attention to every single one of these things. The future, it's right here in front of us. Thank you for joining me.
