Trump Attacks the Media Again

How many of us expected to wake up in an America in which it was legal for immigration authorities to stop and potentially detain individuals based on their ethnicity, the accent with which they speak English, or their place of work? Further, how many of us expected that in that America, the government would be building concentration camps for holding people who have not been charged with a crime and who have not been provided legal due process? And, how many of us expected that in this America, television personalities would be removed from the air because they had upset the President? Welcome to that America.

The administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has been using a combination of regulatory abuse and lawsuits to intimidate the media in the United States. The most recent example of regulatory pressure occurred yesterday when Jimmy Kimmel was suspended by ABC. Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw the broadcast licenses of major broadcasters with whom he has been unhappy. The problem with that threat is that the major broadcasters do not have broadcast licenses. Local affiliates do the actual broadcasting, and it is they that have licenses. While a few are owned by the corporate broadcasters, most are owned separately. Many of the local affiliates are owned by large corporations that have taken control of large numbers of local stations. For instance, the Nexstar Media Group owns 197 television stations across the country. The Sinclair Broadcast Group owns 193 stations, and TEGNA owns or operates 68 stations. Nexstar is currently trying to buy TEGNA. That acquisition will require approval by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is currently chaired by Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee and one-time advocate of free speech. More recently, Carr has become a Trump henchman in a campaign to subjugate the media.

After Jimmy Kimmel made remarks related to the Charlie Kirk murder, Carr explicitly threatened ABC and other media companies. Speaking with podcaster Benny Johnson, who we should remember was not long ago revealed to have been on Russia's payroll, Carr said, "These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead." He argued that Kimmel should be suspended at a minimum. Carr's threat was clear, stating "we can do this the easy way or the hard way".

It should be noted that Kimmel's remarks were not specifically about Kirk. Rather, the statement that seems to have irked Carr was "We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them". As I wrote yesterday, very little is known at this point about the political affiliations of Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old arrested for shooting Kirk. However, this has not stopped many from arguing that Robinson is clearly affiliated with one political group or another. Carr claimed that Kimmel's implication that Robinson was a MAGA adherent was part of a "concerted effort to lie to the American people". Trump, on the other hand, was probably more upset at the jokes that Kimmel made at Trump's expense. Kimmel highlighted a previous 9/11 memorial service that Trump had attended with Laura Loomer and compared it to this year's event which Trump attended with Milania. Kimmel showed video of Trump and Milania acting coldly toward one another and suggested that Trump was signaling that his "diaper was full."

Again, Carr and the FCC pose little threat to ABC. Nexstar, on the other hand, is dependent on the FCC for approval of its purchase of TEGNA. This is a dynamic similar to that which existed earlier this summer when Stephen Colbert was the target of Trump's anger. At that time, CBS owner Paramount was dependent upon FCC approval of its merger with Skydance. CBS fired Colbert, settled a lawsuit Trump had filed against "60 Minutes," and agreed to give Trump free airtime. Subsequent to these actions, the FCC approved the merger. Nexstar clearly understood what it needed to do to enhance the chances of its acquisition being approved and immediately announced that its ABC affiliates would preempt Kimmel's show indefinitely. Sinclair, which is owned by a right-wing billionaire who is Trump-friendly at the best of times, also announced that it would stop broadcasting the show. This was all the incentive that ABC needed to suspend Kimmel.

It is a testament to Trump's thin skin that it is comedians that bear the brunt of his wrath. Trump has repeatedly shown that he considers being laughed at to be among the worst possible indignities. The idea that those like Colbert and Kimmel are making people laugh at him must simply be unbearable. This is another example of how Kirk is being honored in a manner that is inconsistent with his own values. When "South Park" lampooned Kirk by having the show's Cartman character imitate him, Kirk "loved" it and briefly changed his social media profile to an image of Cartman.

Trump has taken a number of other actions to subjugate the media. When the U.S. Congress passed legislation requiring the Chinese owners of TikTok to either divest themselves of interest in the social media network or shut it down, Trump took the lead in determining the network's fate. During his first term, Trump had supported closing TikTok, which at the time was seen as being favorable to liberals. However, by the time Trump started his second term, TikTok had become popular with conservatives and Trump was reluctant to force it to close. The law allowed Trump to provide one 90-day extension on TikTok's deadline for a solution. Trump quickly announced that extension and has continued to implement additional extensions, despite them being unlawful. It is notable that Trump has consistently acted contrary to the law with regard to TikTok, but nobody seems to care. Meanwhile, Trump has worked to see that TikTok ends up in the hands of billionaires friendly to him. Rumors now suggest that Trump has succeeded and a group including Larry Ellison and Marc Andreessen will soon take control of the company. This will mean that almost all major social media networks will either be controlled by Trump himself — he owns Truth Social — or billionaires that support him.

In addition, Trump recently sued the New York Times. The New York Times has sort of been Trump's white whale. He also filed a lawsuit against the newspaper back in 2021 after the paper reported on his tax records. That suit was dismissed in 2023. Perhaps even more humiliating for Trump, he was ordered to pay the Times' legal expenses. Now Trump is again suing the newspaper, this time because he believes articles in the paper disparaged his reputation. Like many of his lawsuits, this one appears to be without merit and it is questionable what Trump hopes to achieve from it. As shown above, in previous lawsuits involving CBS and ABC, Trump was able to use the government's regulatory power to essentially extort settlements. Both CBS and NBC would likely have won their cases if they had chosen to challenge them. Instead, threats to their corporate owners' larger interests by the Trump's lackeys in government incentivized them to settle. The New York Times does not have a similar corporate owner that is exposed to regulatory pressure. As a result, Trump will have to win this case in court, something that he is unlikely to do.

Yesterday in one of the threads in the DCUM Political Discusion forum in which Kimmel's suspension was being hotly debated, a poster asked, "all of this because of Kimmel?" That is a complete misunderstanding of what is happening here. This is not about Kimmel, but rather the freedom of the press. If ABC is willing to suspend Kimmel because Trump is angry, who else will they be willing to take off the air? What other concessions will the network make? This episode also shows that compromising with Trump does not provide safety going forward. ABC previously settled a lawsuit filed by Trump involving George Stephanopoulos by agreeing to contribute $15 million toward Trump's presidential library. Still, Trump and Carr engaged in additional extortion.

There is a joke that has been told in many variations and with several different attributions. I am going to paraphrase the joke in the interest of political correctness: One person asks another person if they would be willing to compromise themselves in exchange for a large sum of money. The second person agrees, and the first person then asks if the second person would make the same compromise for a paltry sum, to which the second person responds by asking, "What kind of person do you think I am?" The first person replies, "We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price." This is something that the major media companies do not understand. They may believe that it is worth settling a lawsuit or sidelining a nighttime host in order to win approval for a merger that involves billions of dollars. But Trump only interprets that as signaling exactly what type of company they really are. These companies may believe that they are making one-time payments or concessions to Trump to get on his good side. Instead, they are signing up for installment plans, with future payments due per Trump's request. This has been true not only for media companies but for law firms and universities as well. If media companies don't want to end up with Trump effectively running all of them, they need to start fighting. Hopefully, the New York Times, less exposed to government pressure, will lead the way.