Journalist Who Broke Biden’s Brain Now Has To Write A Daily Newsletter, Gets Roasted Into Oblivion
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In what can only be described as the journalism equivalent of getting your lunch money stolen while simultaneously being pantsed in front of the whole school, Axios reporter Jonathan Swan has officially announced he’s launching a daily newsletter. And the internet, being the merciful and gentle place it always is, has decided to absolutely eviscerate him for it.
If you don’t remember Swan, let me refresh your memory: He’s the guy who, during a 2020 interview, calmly and politely asked Donald Trump a series of follow-up questions about COVID-19 deaths that basically broke the former president’s brain in real-time. Trump was reduced to stammering about “the numbers, the numbers” while Swan just sat there with the expression of a man who’s realized he left the oven on but can’t do anything about it. It was a masterclass in journalistic restraint. The clip went viral. Swan became a folk hero to anyone who hates watching politicians lie without being fact-checked.
So naturally, when Swan announced he’d be leaving his cushy HBO gig and Axios to write a daily newsletter called “The Swan,” you’d think people would be thrilled. More Swan, more follow-up questions, more of that delicious, awkward silence where a politician realizes they’ve been caught. Right?
The announcement dropped on X (formerly Twitter, because Elon has the naming sense of a 14-year-old who just discovered Nietzsche). Swan wrote, “I’m launching a daily newsletter. I’ll be covering the 2024 election, the White House, and the intersection of power and policy. I hope you’ll subscribe.” Very professional. Very boring. Very much the kind of thing you write when you’re trying to sound serious and not like you just got laid off.
And the replies? Oh, the replies.
They didn’t just roast him. They cremated him, put the ashes in a decorative urn, and then dropped that urn off a bridge. The top reply, with over 40,000 likes, was a screenshot of Swan’s infamous Trump interview with the caption: “This guy peaked 4 years ago and now he’s selling a newsletter. Name a more iconic duo: journalists and irrelevance.” Ouch.
Another user, clearly still nursing a grudge from the 2020 election, wrote: “Daily newsletter? More like daily cope. Bro couldn’t handle that nobody cares about his takes unless he’s interrupting a president.” Because nothing says “I’m secure in my own opinions” like shitting on a journalist for doing his job.
The real fun, though, was the AITA energy. People started treating Swan’s newsletter announcement like a Reddit post. “AITA for not subscribing to a newsletter from a guy who made a whole career off one viral interview?” one user asked. The replies were a chorus of “NTA, he’s just farming engagement.” Another person framed it as a relationship drama: “My boyfriend (34M) wants me to subscribe to his daily newsletter about politics. I (29F) think he’s just trying to monetize his 15 minutes of fame. AITA?” The top reply? “YTA for not realizing your boyfriend is Jonathan Swan.”
It’s brutal. It’s unnecessary. It’s also kind of funny if you have a dark sense of humor and enjoy watching the media eat its own.
But let’s pump the brakes and actually think about this for a second. Is Jonathan Swan really “irrelevant”? The guy broke major stories about Trump’s COVID-19 response, Afghanistan withdrawal, and Hunter Biden’s laptop saga. He’s a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He’s literally sat in the Oval Office and asked the most powerful man on Earth why he was lying about death counts. That’s not nothing. That’s actually the opposite of nothing.
Here’s the thing, though: The internet has a short memory and an even shorter attention span. If you’re not currently doing something that can be memeified within 12 hours, you’re yesterday’s news. And Swan, despite his credentials, has been relatively quiet since the Biden-Trump rematch started heating up. He’s been doing the slow, boring work of investigative journalism—you know, the kind that actually holds power accountable—but that doesn’t get clicks. It gets you a byline and maybe a pat on the back from your editor.
So now he’s trying to adapt. He’s pivoting to a direct-to-consumer model. He’s going to be his own boss. He’s probably going to write a lot about how the media is broken and how he’s going to fix it. Because that’s what every journalist does when they start a newsletter. They all have the same script: “The mainstream media is failing you. I’m here to tell you the truth. Subscribe for $10 a month.”
And you know what? It might actually work. There’s a massive audience of people who are desperate for something that isn’t screaming cable news or algorithmic rage-bait. They want analysis that doesn’t make them want to throw their phone through a window. They want someone who can actually explain why the debt ceiling matters without making it sound like the end of the world. Swan could be that guy.
But the internet doesn’t care about that. The internet cares about the bit. And the bit right now is that Jonathan Swan is a one-hit wonder who’s trying to cash in on a moment that happened four years ago. Never mind that he’s spent the last four years doing actual journalism. Who cares? He got ratioed on X, and that’s the only metric that matters.
Look, I get it. It’s satisfying to watch someone who once seemed untouchable get dragged back down to earth. There’s a primal joy in seeing a “serious journalist” get treated like a random guy trying to sell you a subscription to his Substack about “the future of democracy.” It’s leveling. It’s democratic. It’s
Final Thoughts
Having covered enough White House corridors to know the difference between a chronicler and a shaper of history, it’s clear Jonathan Swan’s value lies in his refusal to let a source frame the narrative. Unlike the stenographers of power, he treats every interview like a deposition, drilling down on contradictions until the real story emerges. In an era of access journalism, Swan reminds us that the most insightful reporting often comes from the uncomfortable pause—the moment a powerful person realizes they’ve said too much.