Tim Pool

Tim Pool Rated Lean Right in April 2025 Small Group Editorial Review

A group of AllSides reviewers on the left, center, and right rated Tim Pool as Lean Right in an April 2025 review.

Pool is an independent journalist and podcast host known for political commentary that often critiques mainstream media and the government. While he criticizes both the left and right, he voted for President Donald Trump and more frequently challenges left-leaning figures and policies. Pool’s story selection and framing more frequently align with right-leaning and anti-establishment narratives — especially on topics like border security, censorship, and cultural issues.

Tim Pool Rated Lean Right in AllSides March 2024 Small Group Editorial Review

In March 2024, the AllSides team conducted a Small Group Editorial Review of commentator Tim Pool and his website, Timcast.com, and moved Tim Pool’s bias rating from Center to Lean Right. 

A small group of AllSides reviewers — with biases on the left, center, and right — reviewed headlines and podcast video content from Timcast.com for media bias, as well as commentary on Pool’s X feed (formerly known as Twitter).

The team noted that Pool demonstrated an anti-establishment bias and criticized both Republicans and Democrats, as well as mainstream media outlets, but that his story choices typically were more of interest to and coming from angles on the right. The team noted Lean Right story choices that included Laken Riley killed by an unauthorized immigrant, criticism of transgender issues, and woke AI; Pool mostly focused on culture war issues and was openly opposed to the left and to communism. 

Pool criticized legacy media outlets and the left, stating, "We here at Timcast, we struggle to get progressives and leftists to actually come on the show. You know why? Because their ideas are bad. Their ideas are bad. Predicated upon fake news. And we can prove it's all fake news using CNN, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal."

Timcast sometimes features libertarian commentary and often highlights polling data.

The team noted Pool’s previous reputation as a liberal commentator who has since become increasingly critical of liberals, similar to how prolific, previously liberal commentators like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi have in recent years. 

Tim Pool Rated Center in September 2019 Independent Review

Previously, a September 2019 Independent Review returned a media bias rating of Center for Tim Pool.

Tim Pool's Comments on AllSides

On February 22, 2024, Tim Pool shared AllSides’ 2023 Google News bias analysis on X, formerly Twitter, with the caption, “Google is rigging the 2024 election.” The post received over 35 million views and was subsequently shared by X CEO Elon Musk. At the time of review, the analysis was not written about by any media outlets AllSides rates as Lean Left or Left.

On June 25, 2019, Tim Pool tweeted, "Follow Allsides [sic] ... This is a pretty good source to show you news from various perspectives. Much respect, please share." 

On Aug. 11, 2019, Pool tweeted an AllSides bias audit that found Google News bias. The bias audit found that the first three articles users saw in the "Top Stories" section of Google News for shooting-related queries were mostly from CNN and left-leaning media outlets. Pool stated, "Is there evidence that Google is biased against conservatives? Yes there is a lot of evidence and it's not just Google ... But here is another bit of data, a non-partisan analyses ... Of course we will just keep hearing the lie that there isn't any regardless".

About Tim Pool

Tim Pool is an American journalist, YouTuber, and political commentator. As the founding member of Vice News (Left bias), he covered major events around the world in places such as Istanbul, Cairo, and Sao Paulo. He livestreamed the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011. Pool helped to launch Subverse media in 2015. 

In 2014, Pool joined Fusion as the Director of Media Innovation to help develop and utilize new technology such as livestreaming aerial drones, mobile software and hardware, and Google Glass. Following his departure from Fusion Pool, Pool began producing independent news and political commentary.

Pool owns several YouTube Channels, including Tim Pool, TimCast, and TimCast IRL; each of these had over 1 million subscribers as of April 2022. 

Pool has been a guest on the Joe Rogan Experience, episodes 1242 and 1258. In episode 1258, Pool appeared alongside Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and the pair discussed freedom of speech and censorship on the platform. Pool argued that Twiter's platform "restricts speech," and that its content moderation rules are "at odds with conservatives." As an example, he pointed to Twitter's rules against misgendering as targeting the conservative view and leading to unfair bans of conservatives. He told Vijaya Gadde, the global lead for legal, policy, and trust and safety at Twitter, and Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder and CEO, "You're biased and you're targeting specific individuals because your rules support this perspective." He argued that the progressive left is more likely to call for restrictions on speech.

Pool has also appeared on several episodes of The Rubin Report with Dave Rubin and has been featured in several documentaries including The Hacker Wars, Occupy: The Movie, and Trolling For Freedom.

Pool is a self-described "disaffected liberal." In an April 2022 tweet, he rejected the label of "progressive" and called himself a "moderate with slightly left leaning views on some policy," adding that "our biggest audience faction identifies as libertarian" and "we rag on fox news all the time."

Pool supported Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic Primary against Hillary Clinton. In Jan. 2019, he tweeted that he "never supported" then-President Donald Trump and didn't "like Trump." However, Pool said he voted for Trump in 2020 out of distaste for the political left's behavior.

Pool's YouTube content often sides with the political right on free speech and censorship issues, and tends to discuss articles from center and right-rated outlets like The Daily Wire (Right bias), the Daily Mail (Right bias) and the Wall Street Journal (Center bias). He also occasionally criticizes the Washington Post (Lean Left bias), including an April 2022 article on the Twitter account "Libs of TikTok."

Third-Party Accusations of Bias

A shooter who killed eight and wounded seven at a Dallas mall in 2023 was found to have posted clips from Pool's show on social media. This prompted accusations that the shooter, described by AP as "a neo-Nazi with an arsenal of firearms," had been "influenced" by Pool. Pool denied any connection to the shooter, calling media coverage surrounding the motive a "psyop" and casting doubt on whether the social media profile in question truly belonged to the shooter. Pool also called the shooting "unfortunate" and blamed "multiculturalism" for the trend of mass shootings in the U.S. A BBC News article appeared to group Pool with people "spreading false rumours" about the shooting, noting, "There's no evidence that Garcia was inspired to action by Mr Pool's podcasts, which cover right-wing talking points and conspiracy theories." A since-deleted tweet promoting the BBC article featured a link preview with a photo of Pool, leading some to accuse BBC of saying Pool was the shooter. 

A Feb. 2022 video essay by YouTuber Timbah.On.Toast described Pool as a pretend "fence sitter," arguing he complicates issues and uses the language of moderates to make the paranoia of right-wing viewers appear sensible. 

Several left-rated outlets have linked Pool to the political right. A 2020 article in The Independent (Lean Left bias) called him "an independent reporter with a primarily right-wing audience." The Daily Beast (Left bias) has repeatedly described Pool as on the right, including one headline which refers to him as an "ivermectin poster boy." An article in The Verge (Lean Left bias) said a separate Daily Beast article described Pool as "an alt-right-adjacent YouTube creator."

A 2019 Vice article described Pool as an "online leftie" and "a prolific YouTuber who routinely rails on the political establishment." However, a separate Vice article published two weeks earlier described him as "a right-wing media figure who once worked at VICE News."