“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” Thomas Jefferson, 1787.
“They (the press) are truly the enemy of the people.” Donald Trump, February 2017. “Don’t believe the crap you see from these people (the press)…” Trump, July 2018. “I hate ‘em, (but) I would never kill them.” Trump, December 2015.
Donald Trump had declared war on the world’s media from the very beginning. War on those news agencies who dare to report anything that appears unflattering to his actions. Anything that might expose inappropriate behavior. Anything that proves his narrative is riddled with falsehoods. But while in his first term it amounted to a battle of words and an attempt to manipulate public perception – and in effect, the public’s knowledge of events and circumstances – in 2025 it is becoming a matter of survival for independent and honest journalism.
Two days after his inauguration, he called on MSNBC to be shut down. They commit two sins that justify such an action: they advocate a liberal perspective and they make it a mission to hold Trump’s feet to the fire. That may not be totally objective, but their facts aren’t wrong, they don’t lie, and they are hardly subversive. Yet on February 22, 2025, he declared that MSNBC is a threat to democracy and must be brought under control.
He isn’t just picking on MSNBC. In October he specifically called for removing the broadcasting license of CBS because he did not like their coverage of Kamala Harris and during the same outburst he added “as should all other Broadcast Licenses because they are all as corrupt as CBS – maybe worse!”
NBC was the first to be targeted for shut down when in 2017 NBC reported that Trump and his military advisors were having a dispute about the size of America’s nuclear arsenal. Trump wasn’t going to stand for that – shut ‘em down. He called for ABC to be shut down in September. Trump tried to burn CNN at the stake in his first year in office, with him most recently calling them out by name to have their license removed last year.
The threats are moving from rhetoric to physical action. To achieve this, Trump named a Trump loyalist to be Chairman of the FCC. Brendan Carr is a contributor to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, the blueprint to achieving an ultra-conservative agenda. He has long advocated ferreting out all perceived prejudice against Trump. Therefore, he was a logical pick for Trump to entrust to develop a strategy to bring down network news.
Four weeks into his tenure, Trump’s attack dog has ripped into all major networks including PBS and NPR by using a strategy to remove their licenses without being too transparent that he is protecting Trump. He is going after a San Francisco radio station that chooses not to support Trump’s deportation policies. NBC, through his investigation into Comcast who owns NBC’s parent company NBCUniversal, will lose their license if Carr’s allegations that they practice Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policies are true. ABC faces execution for Carr’s allegation of bias in the presidential debate. PBS for their financial sponsorship. CBS he blatantly put on trial for distorting the news.
At some point we need to note that Fox News and Newsmax face no scrutiny much less criticism.
Trump’s bringing the press down to its knees takes other approaches as well. The Associated Press and Reuters are banned from the White House and Air Force One, the AP because they continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico instead of Trump’s preference of Gulf of America, and Reuters because they were critical of the AP being blackballed. Trump is employing financial stress to get the press to heel by using lawsuits. If he doesn’t like how you reported or what you reported, he will sue you. He currently has a lawsuit against CBS for $10 billion because he didn’t care for their airing of an interview with Kamala Harris. Trump had turned down CBS’ invitation to have equal time in an interview, but nonetheless he claims the interview was deceitful and intended to tip the election in favor of Harris. He is also using this as his platform to revoke CBS’ license. It is obvious this is intended to get the networks to fall in line and cover the Trump administration in the manner he wants it covered.
This is Authoritarian 101. If you can’t control the press, undermine the public’s confidence in the press. When the networks ignored his November 2016 lecture at Trump Tower on how to cover his presidency, he turned to referring to the press as “fake news” and advised the public to turn to him for the truth. Apparently not completely satisfied with his fake news campaign, he seemingly intends to finish them off for good.
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