MS NOW is desperate. After years of losing viewers, they spent millions on a flashy rebrand—and now they’re clinging to one story: defend cartel boat crews, scream “war crime,” and hope one more “Get Trump” outrage cycle can save their ratings.
But while they cry on TV for smugglers, families here are burying overdose victims.
The Crisis MS NOW Won’t Lead With
The United States has been losing over 80,000 people a year to drug overdoses, with more than 100,000 deaths at the peak of the crisis.
Illicit opioids and other hard drugs shipped through international supply chains now kill far more Americans each year than murder or car crashes.
Hitting the Drug Pipeline Upstream
For the first time in decades, a White House has put very public emphasis on hitting traffickers upstream—designating cartels as enemy targets, using the military against alleged drug boats, and folding interdiction into its official drug‑policy priorities.
Those boat strikes are controversial on legal grounds, but they’re aimed at the same pipeline that ends at overdose funerals in American towns.
From Overdose Funerals to “Save the Smugglers”
MS NOW’s coverage flips the story: the main characters aren’t the Americans dying from cartel products, but the suspected smugglers on camera, described as shipwrecked victims whose “rights” and “due process” are being violated.
They talk more about the comfort and rights of cartel crews than about the people walking past overdose memorials in their own communities.
Due Process Is a Right for Americans
Due process is a right for Americans. MS NOW wants cartel boat crews and drug smugglers treated like innocent citizens in Ohio, while the drugs they move are killing tens of thousands of Americans a year.
Journalism or Survival Strategy?
MS NOW didn’t rebrand from a position of strength; they did it after long‑term ratings trouble and constant mockery that almost no one was watching.
So when that same network discovers sudden moral outrage for cartel boat crews and frames every strike as the next Trump scandal, it’s fair to ask whether this is about law—or about keeping a dying brand alive with one more “Get Trump” storyline.
Whose Side Are You On?
You have to decide whose side you’re on: the people trying to disrupt the drug pipeline that’s killing Americans, or the people reserving their strongest outrage for cartel boat crews on MS NOW.















