In the petition, described by The Washington Post as having gone viral,[11] she argued, "BuzzFeed has been caught repeatedly stealing ideas, jokes, bits, gags, and therefore money from prominent YouTube creators.

"[11] In 2017, Hughes sued YouTuber Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) for copyright infringement after he used a portion of her Hillary Clinton election party footage.

[15] Her first appearance on a television series came during the U.S. midterm elections of 2018, when HBO aired four episodes of Crooked Media's Pod Save America, with Hughes as a correspondent.

In 2015, Hughes was awarded a fellowship from the Sundance Episodic Story Lab, with a half-hour comedy pilot titled Unlikely, co-written with Lyle Friedman.

[21] In 2023, Hughes wrote for Steven Soderbergh's science fiction series Command Z, inspired by Kurt Andersen's 2020 book, Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America.

Politicians participating in the event were 2016 United States presidential election Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O'Malley.

[23] Beginning in 2019, Hughes became the co-host of a newly launched daily news podcast from Crooked Media titled What a Day, alongside political journalist Gideon Resnick.

[26] As part of a newly signed deal in July 2023, iHeartMedia and Ninth Planet Audio announced the production of a podcast to be hosted by Hughes.