The Daily Populous Tuesday December 30th, 2025 morning edition
Authored by thebulwark.com and submitted by BulwarkOnline

Lauren Chen is seen on set of Candace on April 5, 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Jason Davis/Getty Images)

RIGHT-WING MEDIA PERSONALITY Lauren Chen left the United States in July in disgrace. Her Tenet Media YouTube channel, which positioned itself as a sort of MAGA supergroup bringing together such popular commentators as Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, and Dave Rubin, had been exposed in 2024 by the FBI as a Russian media front illicitly taking money from pro-Putin propaganda outlet RT.

The September 2024 indictment from the Southern District of New York targeted Tenet’s FARA-skirting Russian funders, not Chen or her husband, Liam Donovan. But the Canadian couple were clearly described in the indictment as allegedly scheming with RT employees to direct $10 million to Tenet and even create a fictional persona to mislead one pundit about the source of the funding.

In the wake of the indictment, Chen lost her work visa and was forced to leave the country. She also vanished from social media. It seemed unlikely she would return to the United States anytime soon.

But this holiday season, Chen and her husband were back in Nashville, where she lived while running Tenet. She broke the news herself, by announcing on Instagram and X on Christmas Day that she could now return to the United States, and specifically thanking the State Department’s Joe Rittenhouse, a senior adviser on consular affairs and former Trump presidential campaign worker, for his help.

“The biggest thank you to Joe Rittenhouse at the State Department for moving mountains to ensure we were able to return in time for the holidays!” Chen wrote on Instagram.

Chen also thanked Customs and Border Patrol, the FBI, and “the administration” broadly.

“Also the utmost gratitude to CBP, the new leadership at the FBI, and the administration for their help making this possible, and for everything they do to keep America safe,” she wrote.

Rittenhouse himself confirmed the administration’s effort to help Tenet Media’s founders return to America in a post on X, wishing Chen a “merry Christmas.”

“This Christmas I’m so happy to help correct the wrongs of the past administration,” he wrote. “Being able to bring Lauren and her family back for Christmas would not be possible without new Leadership at the Whitehouse, FBI, CBP, and State Department.”

Rittenhouse does appear to be a fan of right-wing media. In August, he posted a picture with his feet up on a desk in what appeared to be a government office building, watching a video from right-wing British YouTuber “Sargon of Akkad.”

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THE IDEA THAT THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION would assist the foreign founders of an illegally funded media outlet aimed at reaching American audiences with Russian propaganda might seem outlandish. Indeed, it might be the first time the administration has offered assistance to someone from Canada.

But the administration has not shied away from throwing bones to right wing media figures—prioritizing them at White House functions and elevating them at the briefings. As for Russian interests, the president has long been outwardly comfortable associating with them.

The FBI declined to comment. CBP, the White House, and the State Department didn’t respond to requests for comment. Neither did Chen or Rittenhouse.

According to court records, the federal case against Tenet’s funders is still open. But with the Russian operators who allegedly facilitated the money-laundering scheme still at large, the investigation hasn’t gone anywhere in the year since the indictments were filed.

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The right-wing commentators who posted on Tenet have maintained their innocence about the nature of the operation, with Johnson, Rubin, and Pool all claiming that they were “victims” of Chen’s company—duped, as it were, by the Russian government into taking tens of thousands of dollars for making a single YouTube video.

By and large, they’ve faced minimal professional repercussions. In fact, their influence and their audiences are far larger now than when Tenet was exposed. The one person who did face some fallout was Chen, whose visa situation with the American government was dire. This past September, she complained that the Biden administration had “nuked my visa” after Tenet’s funding was exposed. In a July statement that marked her return to social media, Chen complained that she couldn’t return to the United States.

“Because my American visa was contingent upon our company, we had no choice but to leave our home and children’s place of birth,” she wrote. “We are doing everything in our power to get a new visa and return home.”

The Trump administration’s intervention on Chen’s behalf comes as it has moved to dramatically restrict visa rules more broadly—even denying visas to activists opposed to disinformation. Rittenhouse himself has briefed the media on the administration’s student-visa revocations.

From my point of view, Trump’s help for Chen and her husband also hurts the real injured parties: Johnson, Rubin, and Pool. After all, with Chen and her husband on the loose in America once again, is any pro-Trump media star safe from being targeted with the next Tenet-like con?

AngryMillennialFU on December 30th, 2025 at 01:59 UTC »

So an op-ed against israel and they will kick you out of the country. But if you run a russian influence scheme you get a visa? HOW ARE YOU ALL NOT CONVINCED TRUMP IS A TRAITOR.

mrgeekguy on December 30th, 2025 at 01:33 UTC »

Yup, Money. That's all that takes for Trump to sell out the USA. Just give him a check, and tell him how big his penis is, and boom, visa!

BulwarkOnline on December 30th, 2025 at 01:25 UTC »

In the wake of the indictment, Lauren Chen lost her work visa and was forced to leave the country. She also vanished from social media. It seemed unlikely she would return to the United States anytime soon.

But this holiday season, Chen and her husband were back in Nashville, where she lived while running Tenet. She broke the news herself, by announcing on Instagram and X on Christmas Day that she could now return to the United States, and specifically thanking the State Department’s Joe Rittenhouse, a senior adviser on consular affairs and former Trump presidential campaign worker, for his help.