Most politicians use the media to receive a helping hand when running for campaigns, making pivotal announcements, and maintaining a narrative that benefits their goals. President Trump has once again gone against the status quo and decided to attack the media during his presidential campaign and now continues the attack while in office.
“I don’t know if Trump himself has a ‘game plan’ per se, but it is clear that the overall picture is of an Administration that disdains a free press,” Rebecca Hamilton, a law professor at American University, said in an email. “Their view — and this is evident from Trump’s rhetoric, his prior lawsuits, the Pentagon office space memo, and the FCC investigations — is that any media outlets that don’t align themselves with Trump’s agenda are the enemy. This reflects a fundamental disrespect for the principles underlying a democratic commitment to a free press.”
Since his return to office, Trump and his allies have continued their anti-news rhetoric, limiting media access to certain outlets while being involved with lawsuits and directives that attempt to sway the people with untrue propaganda. “Punishing journalists for not adopting state-mandated terminology is an alarming attack on press freedom,” the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonprofit group that advocates for First Amendment rights, said in a statement. “President Trump has the authority to change how the U.S. government refers to the Gulf. But he cannot punish a news organization for using another term. The role of our free press is to hold those in power accountable, not to act as their mouthpiece.”
Since the start of his campaign for the 2024 presidential election, Trump and Vice President JD Vance have consistently caused tension between their supporters and journalists, labeling anything that challenges their ideology or statements as fake news, a claim he made almost 2,000 times during his run. Trump’s new best friend, Elon Musk, has even gone to great lengths to suspend the accounts of journalists on Twitter to silence and attack the media.
Brendan Carr, the newly installed Federal Communications Commission chair, has wasted no time launching investigations against many media companies Trump criticizes. Carr launched an investigation into DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) policies at Comcast and NBC. He has also gone after CBS, PBS, and NPR.
“It is unusual for any news distortion complaint to get this far, particularly when it involves a simple editing choice,” said Robert Corn-Revere, former chief counsel to the FCC and a longtime First Amendment litigator. “I don’t know of any case that rivals this in terms of the weakness of the claim,” said Corn-Revere, who is now with the group Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
This is only the beginning of the censorship this cabinet is putting forth, as press secretary Karoline Leavitt, has made it known in several press briefings that new media such as podcasters will be welcomed to join the press pool as they rid the room of “fake news reporters.”