Sordid Sortor
A dust-up in Portland reveals the dangerous degree of Trump administration overlap with the right-wing marketplace
Two weeks ago, Nick Sortor guest hosted the Charlie Kirk Show along with Jack Posobiec and the guy who dresses up as a brick wall at Trump rallies. This week, he was hanging around with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem in Portland, posting videos to social media of behind-the-scenes top-level meetings with officials leading federal response there.
Sortor is an example of something I alluded to a few weeks ago: “a total erasure of the line—thin as it was—between the right-wing marketplace and elective Republican politics in the Donald Trump era.”
Sortor is a 27-year-old self-described “independent journalist” often described (outside of right-wing circles) as a “conservative influencer.” He got some attention on national right-wing media in 2023, when he planted himself in East Palestine and made himself available for “reports” about the failings of the Biden administration in response to the train derailment there.
Sortor has found a niche for himself showing up in places where MAGA-fueled pseudo-stories are brewing. With a little video footage, good contacts, and absolutely no fidelity to the truth, he is able to give hosts a few minutes of salacious content. Sortor went to Springfield, Ohio, to “report” on the Haitian cat-eating scandal. He has reported on, and sometimes stirred up, left-wing protests. “LINES OF CARS are now burning in the streets of Los Angeles,” Sortor tweeted in June. He appears on popular podcasts of Bennie Johnson and Tim Pool; his “byline” appears in Free Republic and HotAir, although the “articles” are typically his tweets and video clips, He even once got chewed out by Dwayne Johnson in a Facebook post for Sortor’s “toxic, false, clickbait garbage” about The Rock’s relief efforts for Maui.
All of which is okay—let’s be honest, there’s clearly a market for the services Sortor provides, and if he wasn’t doing it, somebody else would. Maybe the guy in the brick wall suit.
The twist was revealed this week, after Sortor was briefly arrested after getting into a scuffle with protesters in Portland. Sortor was there confronting people, taking video, and doing stand-up interviews with Laura Ingraham among others.
Unsurprisingly, Sortor got into a scuffle Thursday evening—video appeared to show that protesters reacted violently to Sortor’s provocations—and Portland police did what I’ve seen done many times when animosity gets physical at a demonstration: detain and arrest anyone involved, and sort it out later (often by a prosecutor dropping the charges). No cop wants to spend time listening to angry blowhards, on both sides, arguing their side of the confrontation . They just want to stop the fighting. It might not be right, but it’s by no means unusual, in my experience covering protests.
This, however, was unusual: early the following morning, the aforementioned Benny Johnson tweeted “IMPORTANT NEWS”—that he had just spoken with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem to make sure she was “briefed on the attack and arrest of journalist Nick Sortor.” She not only took his call, he continued; she assured him that her department would “surge” resources to Portland to deal with the Antifa problem.
Johnson, barely one year ago, was accused of posting videos that were paid for, and in the interests of, Russian operatives. So was Pool; both have maintained that the were unwitting dupes. (Johnson, for what it’s worth, has blocked me on Twitter/X for many years, stemming, if I recall correctly, from my calling him out on reporting a parody as fact.)
Johnson may well have not known that he were getting rich for peddling Russian propaganda, but he, and Sortor, certainly understand that they are currently getting rich peddling propaganda for the Trump government. And, that they are helping create policy that they can then propagandized to their eager audiences.
As Friday morning dawned, both the right-wing marketplace and high-ranking Republican officials were in full five-alarm fire mode over Sortor’s seemingly unremarkable arrest. Sortor tweeted that Attorney General Pam Bondi “personally called me” with news that she was ordering an investigation into his arrest, which she subsequently announced publicly. Texas Governor Greg Abbott tweeted “FREE NICK SORTOR.” Fox News carried a live interview of Sortor upon his release. Harmeet Dhillon, Civil Rights AAG assigned by Bondi to head up the investigation, tweeted that she had spoken with Sortor and Bondi, and that the investigation “is a high priority” for the Civil Rights Division. She also tweeted: “Portland: it’s FO time. Buckle up.”
By mid-day, Trump’s press secretary was discussing Sortor’s arrest at the daily press briefing. She complained, falsely, that police had arrested Sortor but not the protesters involved in the fight. (In fact, while charges were later dropped against Sortor after authorities had the chance to review videos and speak with witnesses, Portland is prosecuting two for assaulting him.)
After Sortor appeared again on Ingraham’s show, to discuss his arrest, he claims to have received a supportive text message from President Trump himself. Trump, as we know, has proceeded to order National Guard troops into Portland based in large part on the videos and claims being aired and circulated by right-wingers such as Sortor.
The lines between the marketplace and the administration are so blurry it’s sometimes hard to remember who is on which side in a given exchange. Benny Johnson went on an ICE ride-along with Noem in Chicago on Friday (wearing Border Patrol body armor), during which he interviewed her about her friendship with Charlie Kirk. Johnson then went on Lara Trump’s Fox News show to be interviewed about footage he got of ICE arrests, which had already aired on Jesse Watters’ show. Sortor appeared on “Saturday in America” this past weekend—a new Fox News program hosted by former Trump Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany. When Noem came to Portland Tuesday, Johnson arrived at the same time (it was unclear whether they flew together), and Johnson, Sortor, and other right-wing agitators posted videos from inside Noem’s meetings with officials.
What I’ve described here is just a small sample of the intersections between profit-seeking grifters, and the offices directly determining policy and action for the federal government. Much of the cabinet, after all, was chosen on the strength of their appearances in right-wing media.
Such connections are especially dangerous with the current administration, which is frankly quite open about its willingness to use the force of government to favor certain people, businesses, organizations, institutions, and even states, while punishing others. The relationships between the first Trump administration and the right-wing marketplace helped create the horror of January 6, 2021. The current situation seems, if anything, even more dangerous.