Outlet profile

The Federalist (Opinion)

U.S. right (conservative)

Owned byFDRLST Media LLC, a privately held company led by co-founder and publisher Ben Domenech. It operates alongside a related nonprofit, the FDRLST Media Foundation.

FundingOnline advertising and paid memberships and newsletters. Part of its operation runs through the FDRLST Media Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charity that has reportedly received money from conservative donors, including Richard Uihlein. The outlet has not fully disclosed its funders.

On the administrationbroadly supportive

Background

The Federalist launched in September 2013, co-founded by Ben Domenech and Sean Davis, and is named after the Federalist Papers. It began as a center-right site with a mix of libertarian and traditional conservative writers. It later moved toward more populist and pro-Trump positions, especially after 2016. Its funding has drawn scrutiny. Critics have noted that ad revenue alone seems unlikely to support its staff, and reports have linked its nonprofit arm to donors such as Richard Uihlein. In 2020 Google threatened to remove the site from its ad platform over racist comments in its comment section, and the site removed the comments rather than lose the ad access. The Federalist has been criticized by fact-checkers and media watchdogs for promoting false or misleading claims, including about the 2020 election, COVID-19, and vaccines. In 2023 it joined a lawsuit against the State Department's Global Engagement Center, arguing the government had pressured the private-sector ad-tech groups that rate and flag news outlets. Media-bias raters generally place it on the right to far right, and it describes its own mission as defending conservative ideas and a free society. Its output includes the daily Federalist Radio Hour and a mix of opinion pieces, news reports and cultural commentary.

Sources

Profile compiled 2026-11-01; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.

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