The League of American Workers is a “populist right, pro-worker organization,” according to its founder, Steve Cortes, a longtime conservative pundit and former Donald Trump spokesperson. The group’s website claims Cortes is leading “a young and growing movement of pro-worker patriotic populism.”
There’s certainly plenty of room to grow, The Intercept found. By all indications, this “league” is a one-man show without apparent ties to the “disregarded American workers” Cortes claims to represent. Instead, the League of American Workers has links to GOP dark money and a network of conservative websites dressed up to look like local news outlets.
“Of course it is astroturfing,” said Jody Calemine, director of advocacy at AFL-CIO. “Its founder is a TV personality with a far-right agenda.”
Speaking for American workers is a new gig for Cortes, a Georgetown graduate who toiled on Wall Street before landing a Trump administration role and founding a boutique consultancy for “institutional investors and sophisticated individuals” that he runs to this day. Since its launch in 2023, Cortes has used the League of American Workers as a comms shop to peddle an anti-union version of blue-collar populism. His league is also one of dozens on the advisory board for Project 2025.
Cortes would not answer basic questions about the leadership structure and funding for the League of American Workers and did not provide details about his group’s role in Project 2025.
“I’m honored to help the crucial Project 2025 effort,” he told The Intercept, “to fully staff up a second Trump term with the most talented and philosophically aligned public servants possible to implement an America First national renewal.”
John Logan, a labor historian who has written about astroturfing strategies, said it was tempting to dismiss Cortes “as a Georgetown-educated MAGA supporter trying to pretend to be this populist who cares about the working class.”
“To the extent there is a coherent message,” Logan said after reviewing the League of American Workers’ skeletal website and videos, “it is a very deliberate strategy to win in places like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.”
“It’s sometimes difficult to predict who will be the most effective spokesperson for right-wing populism.”
Suits to Baseball Caps
“Patriots, I am coming to you from a crime scene: the U.S.-Mexico Border,” Cortes said in the opening of a recent video bashing President Joe Biden on immigration.
The talking points are familiar terrain for Cortes, who pitched MAGA border policies as Trump’s campaign spokesperson and emissary to Hispanic voters. Something’s changed, though: Cortes, a former hedge fund trader, ditched his suit and tie for a baseball hat as he beams at a segment of the border fence he once hawked on primetime.
Cortes has burned through titles and positions over the past decade, many of them contradictory. While squawking on CNBC, he was a harsh critic of then-candidate Trump’s populism (and hat choices), then he joined Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaign teams. At Trump’s direction, he became a CNN contributor to be, as Cortes characterized it recently, “his spokesman and advocate on that network.”
Cortes’ CV also includes a brief stint at Newsmax and stumping for J.D. Vance’s Senate campaign in 2022.
Over the past year, Cortes flipped from Team Trump to Team DeSantis and back again. He helped lead a super PAC backing Ron DeSantis’s presidential bid, then stepped away last October to launch a poorly watched YouTube channel, which he’s seemingly abandoned. After the Iowa caucuses in January, Cortes crawled back on the Trump train with a mea culpa on Fox Business using his League of American Workers title.
Cortes’s latest project is similarly contradictory and a bit of a mystery. On C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal,” he vaguely described it as “a nonprofit advocacy group.”
“We are a populist right, pro-worker organization,” Cortes told host Mimi Geerges in July. Repeatedly using the first-person plural to describe the League of American Workers, Cortes added that immigration and trade were “our” main issues.
Dark Money and a Secret Board
Cortes announced the launch of the League of American Workers on his Substack last year, shortly before he endorsed DeSantis.
“Who advocates for workers? Unions claim they do, but corrupt leadership pursues leftist agendas instead,” Cortes wrote. “The new League of American Workers steps into this void.” Union “corruption” has been one of his drumbeats. In a brief appearance on Steve Bannon’s podcast on launch day, Cortes said unions were “all about corruption.”
“If you’re so moved, please support us economically,” he said, plugging a newly launched website. “This is amazing, brother,” Bannon said. “You should have done this a long time ago, but great you’re doing it now. You’re the guy that could be the spokesman for this.”
Given the name Cortes chose, the structure of the League of American Workers is puzzling.
The word “league” suggests an organization with members or affiliates — say, the League of Conservation Voters, the Urban League, or even a local bowling league. But the League of American Workers is “not a member organization,” Cortes told The Intercept.
“There’s nothing about this that looks like a democratic organization where workers actually have any power,” said the AFL-CIO’s Calemine.
Cortes said the League of American Workers has just three board members, himself and two others, whom he would not name.
“We don’t disclose funding and we have a board,” he said in an email.
“I don’t want to publicize name [sic] until required.”
His group’s paper trail, which would generally show details like who’s on the board, is difficult to follow. Records show the League of American Workers incorporated in Ohio in March 2023, and its single-page bylaws indicate it operates as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit under the federal tax code.
But there is no record of the group in the IRS or Ohio attorney general’s nonprofit registries. Cortes said the League of American Workers has “filed with the IRS,” but he did not respond to follow-up questions about its current status with the IRS.
Cortes also does not want to talk about where the League of American Workers gets its money.
David Langdon, a Cincinnati-based lawyer deeply connected to conservative dark-money networks, filed the incorporation papers for the organization. Langdon, who is known in the world of dark money, did not respond to questions from The Intercept.
Cortes avoided revealing his funding sources on C-SPAN, simply acknowledging “generous donors throughout the country.” He described these donors as patriots who support an organization that advocates for American workers. However, he did not disclose the identities of these donors on his website.
The organization, linked to a conservative funding platform WinRed, does not inform donors that contributions to 501(c)(4) groups are not tax-deductible.
Regarding the flood of pro-Trump content released by the League of American Workers, Cortes, although no longer an official spokesperson, has utilized this platform to distribute material. The group claims to produce op-eds and reporting on issues affecting American workers, which are then disseminated through various platforms, including local journalistic outlets.
However, these local outlets are primarily “pink slime” entities that lack transparency and individual bylines. The relationship between Cortes and Metric Media, which operates these outlets, dates back to his time as a Trump campaign spokesperson.
Despite questions about this relationship and the authenticity of the content produced, Cortes continues to push League of American Workers content through Metric Media sites targeted at battleground states.
Furthermore, the League of American Workers and Metric Media share a private mailbox in Chicago, suggesting a close connection between the two entities.
Metric Media actively promotes Cortes on social media, running numerous Facebook ads to drive traffic to League of American Workers content. The timing of these ads often coincides with key messaging points in Cortes’s campaigns.
Additionally, Cortes has commissioned and published numerous election polls through the League of American Workers, which have garnered attention from major media outlets. These polls, sponsored by the organization, delve into swing states and provide insights into voter preferences. One of the firms that Cortes hired, North Star Opinion Research, known for its conservative polling, has charged a range of $12,000 to over $75,000 for its services, based on campaign finance data from the past four years.
Dan Judy, a research analyst at North Star, stated, “What we charge for our work is between us and our clients, and we keep it private unless disclosure is required by law.”
The primary goal of these polls is to identify the most effective narratives and arguments to persuade voters to support Trump, as emphasized by Cortes himself.
Cortes explained to conservative radio host Dan Proft in May, “We’re trying to find out, where are people, and if they’re not in the place we want, then how do we move them?”
In June, prior to the Trump-Biden debate, Cortes summarized the key themes from the League of American Workers polls that indicated where Trump would resonate the most.
Cortes highlighted North Star’s survey results on Biden’s perceived cognitive decline, immigration, and inflation, stating, “With these powerful messages, delivered with the right combination of strength and empathy, Trump can turn his current modest battleground leads into commanding ones. Time to start saving America.”
With Harris now in the spotlight, Cortes has shifted his focus. He is now targeting Harris on various issues such as immigration, gun rights, and reparations. From his position at the League of American Workers, Cortes has been quoted criticizing Harris in various Metric Media outlets with geographically targeted messaging.
For example, in “PHX Reporter” on July 26, Cortes stated, “How radical is Kamala? Well, if you’re a white or Hispanic person living in the Phoenix area—she is going to take your money and give it to black people.”
Similarly, in “Waukesha Times” on July 26, Cortes reiterated, “How radical is Kamala? Well, if you’re a white, Hispanic, or Asian person living in Waukesha County, she is going to take your money and give it to black people.” Please rephrase
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