In an attempt to quell a revolt within his base, President Trump capitalized on his supporters’ mistrust of his favorite enemy, the news media, by declaring war on The Wall Street Journal for its coverage of his friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as my colleague Erica Green explained.
The tactic was well-known and may have been taken directly from his 2016 presidential campaign playbook.
But now is a very different time. Even while Trump’s criticism of the media seems to be a holdover from his first term, his actions have gone much beyond that.
Trump has launched a forceful and accurate assault on the media’s weak spots during the last six months. After decades of such attempts failed, he persuaded his congressional supporters to eliminate financing for public radio and attempted to demolish Voice of America, the federally financed news organization that covers nations with little press freedom.
The administration’s strategies go far beyond reducing government money; similar to its attacks on specific colleges, it is looking for and using every tool at its disposal. It has exercised its power over seemingly local issues, such as when reporters from traditional media outlets, like The New York Times, lost their desks at the Pentagon to right-wing media outlets that were friendly to them, or when it excluded The Journal from the press pool for an upcoming trip to Scotland. It has also exercised its power over more significant issues.
Brendan Carr, Trump’s hand-picked chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, promptly resurrected complaints about ABC, CBS, and NBC’s coverage of the 2024 election that the previous chair had dismissed. Carr also stated that the outcome of a news distortion complaint against CBS could influence his agency’s investigation of a proposed merger between Skydance and Paramount, CBS’ parent company. These actions may succeed where Nixon failed, just as Trump failed in his first term. My colleague Jim Rutenberg noted them early this year, bringing to mind Richard Nixon’s attack on the press following his reelection.
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