Nevertheless, Collins and The Onion continued their fight. Most recently, they attempted to enter a leasing situation with the far-right media company, where, for $81,000 a month, they would license the infowars.com domain and brand name, as well as any associated intellectual property. After six months, they would have the option to renew the deal.

But unfortunately for The Onion, the Texas court system has once again prevented that plan from coming to fruition. If and when they do finally get their hands on Infowars, The Onion won’t waste any time revamping it. “We intend on flipping it over right away,” said Collins. “We got a bunch of bullshit ready to go. It’s really stupid. Everything that we have planned is very, very dumb. So I hope people get excited for that.”

Days before the ruling, Collins’s excitement was palpable. “Frankly, the newspaper is doing so well that we need to give them more space to show that off,” he said. “Not every media merger and acquisition has to be the worst news you’ve ever heard in your entire fucking life.” Below, he breaks down his still unfinished quest for Infowars.

Vanity Fair: The first time The Onion tried to buy Infowars, you ran into some red tape. What happened?

Ben Collins: The first time we won that auction, it was nine days after the 2024 election. There were a lot of people wondering if the courts were going to hold, where the country was going. I think we walked into a burning building. The judge got a little spooked and kicked it down to a lower court. We’ve been waiting for some sort of process there for a long time.

Can you explain the lease agreement between Infowars and The Onion?

We got in the way. We said we would take over his lease. We would take over the cost of the estate until we can buy it, which we intend to do. So that’s how we got to this leasing construct that will hopefully lead us to buying this thing as soon as we possibly can legally. While we’re leasing it, a big cut of merch sales will go to the [Sandy Hook] families. And then when we buy it, all of that money—all of the purchase price—will go to the families. That’s the goal.

I know the Sandy Hook families have been on board with you and The Onion. What do you think their response is right now?

I’m hoping that last week gave them some schadenfreude or something. That it gave them the ability to see what the point of this is, because Alex Jones revealed himself to be a stupid clown with bad sources.

I hope the families can see what this is, which is that we’re uniquely able to point out the ridiculous bullshit that has taken over the brains of America’s dumbest people and has been weaponized against them. That’s what happened with their trial. They’ve had to deal with constant harassment. They’ve had to deal with the most horrific stuff, and Infowars was the tip of the spear on that. Now we get to show off how ridiculous anyone who ever believed this nonsense is.