Donald Trump has repeatedly explained the critical importance of vengeance (Mother Jones, 10/19/16): “When somebody screws you, you screw them back in spades. And I really mean it. I really mean it. You’ve gotta hit people hard. And it’s not so much for that person. It’s other people watch.”
“Revenge—it’s a big part of Trump’s life,” Mother Jones‘ David Corn (10/19/16) wrote just before Trump was elected to the presidency the first time:
In speeches and public talks, Trump has repeatedly expressed his fondness for retribution. In 2011, he addressed the National Achievers Congress in Sydney, Australia, to explain how he had achieved his success. He noted there were a couple of lessons not taught in business school that successful people must know. At the top of the list was this piece of advice: “Get even with people. If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe it.”
Knowing this about Trump, Democrats and liberals worry that he will use the Department of Justice, especially if Matt Gaetz is confirmed as attorney general, as an unrestrained vehicle to pursue the prosecution of political enemies.
But given Trump’s constant attacks on media—“the opposition party,” as his ally Steve Bannon called the fourth estate (New York Times, 1/26/17)—journalists fear that he will use the power of the state to intimidate if not destroy the press.
Defunding public broadcasting
If you run a journalistic outfit, like PBS president Paula Kerger (Politico, 3/27/19), and don’t know why Trump doesn’t like you, you probably aren’t doing your job very well.
Trump called for defunding NPR (Newsweek, 4/10/24) after a long-time editor accused the radio outlet of liberal bias in the conservative journal Free Press (4/9/24). Rep. Claudia Tenney (R–NY) introduced legislation to defund NPR because “taxpayers should not be forced to fund NPR, which has become a partisan propaganda machine” (Office of Claudia Tenney, 4/19/24). With Republicans also holding both houses of Congress, bills like Tenney’s become more viable. Trump has previously supported budget proposals that eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (Politico, 3/27/19).
The infamous Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda many see as a blueprint for the second Trump term, calls for the end to public broadcasting, because it is viewed as liberal propaganda:
Every Republican president since Richard Nixon has tried to strip the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) of taxpayer funding. That is significant not just because it means that for half a century, Republican presidents have failed to accomplish what they set out to do, but also because Nixon was the first president in office when National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which the CPB funds, went on air.
In other words, all Republican presidents have recognized that public funding of domestic broadcasts is a mistake. As a 35-year-old lawyer in the Nixon White House, one Antonin Scalia warned that conservatives were being “confronted with a long-range problem of significant social consequences—that is, the development of a government-funded broadcast system similar to the BBC.”
All of which means that the next conservative president must finally get this done, and do it despite opposition from congressional members of his own party if necessary. To stop public funding is good policy and good politics. The reason is simple: President Lyndon Johnson may have pledged in 1967 that public broadcasting would become “a vital public resource to enrich our homes, educate our families and to provide assistance to our classrooms,” but public broadcasting immediately became a liberal forum for public affairs and journalism.
PBS and NPR, as FAIR (10/24/24) has noted, have for decades caved in to right-wing pressures—PBS by adding conservative programming, NPR by trying to rid itself of political commentary altogether. But the right will never let go of its ideological opposition to media outlets not directly owned by the corporate class.
‘Whether criminally or civilly’
A bill—defeated for now—”would have granted the Department of the Treasury broad authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of nonprofits deemed to be supporting ‘terrorism'” (Al Jazeera, 11/12/24).
Trump also has a well known track record of revoking the credentials of journalists who produce reporting he doesn’t like (Washington Post, 2/24/17, 5/8/19; New Republic, 11/5/24). It is realistic to assume that a lot more reporters will be barred from White House events in the years ahead.
While a bill that would grant the secretary of the treasury broad authority to revoke nonprofit status to any organization the office deems as a “terrorist” organization has so far failed (Al Jazeera, 11/12/24), it is quite possible that it could come up for a vote again. If this bill were to become law, the Treasury Department could use this ax against a great many progressive nonprofit outlets, like Democracy Now! and the American Prospect, as well as investigative outlets like ProPublica and the Center for Investigative Reporting.
The department could even target the Committee to Protect Journalists, which has already said in response to Trump’s victory, “The fundamental right to a free press, guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, must not be impaired” (11/6/24).
Margaret Sullivan (Guardian, 10/27/24), an avid media observer, said there is no reason to think Trump will soften his campaign against the free press. She said:
In 2022, he sued the Pulitzer Prize board after they defended their awards to the New York Times and the Washington Post. Both newspapers had won Pulitzer Prizes for investigating Trump’s ties to Russia.
More recently, Trump sued ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for defamation over the way the anchor characterized the verdict in E. Jean Carroll’s sexual misconduct case against him. Each of those cases is wending its way through the courts.
Margaret Sullivan (Guardian, 10/27/24): “Donald Trump poses a clear threat to journalists, to news organizations and to press freedom in the US and around the world.”
She added:
There is nothing to suggest that Trump would soften his approach in a second term. If anything, we can expect even more aggression.
Consider what one of Trump’s most loyal lieutenants, Kash Patel, has said.
“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel threatened during a podcast with Steve Bannon. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”
Trump has already gone after the New York Times and Penguin Random House since Sullivan wrote this. CJR (11/14/24) said:
The letter, addressed to lawyers at the New York Times and Penguin Random House, arrived a week before the election. Attached was a discursive ten-page legal threat from an attorney for Donald Trump that demanded $10 billion in damages over “false and defamatory statements” contained in articles by Peter Baker, Michael S. Schmidt, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner.
It singles out two stories coauthored by Buettner and Craig that related to their book on Trump and his financial dealings, Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, released on September 17. It also highlighted an October 20 story headlined “For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment” by Baker and an October 22 piece by Schmidt, “As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator.”
And just before his victory, Trump sued CBS News, alleging the network’s “deceitful” editing of a recent 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris “misled the public and unfairly disadvantaged him” (CBS News, 10/31/24).
Expect more of this, except this time, Trump will have all the levers of the state on his side. And whatever moves the next Trump administration makes to attack the press will surely have a chilling effect, which will only empower his anti-democratic political agenda.
I think that Trump has a talent for attacking popular targets, and masking his close connection to the media owners and writers and personalities who he demonizes. As FAIR has documented for half a century (?), the profit-based media is extremely biased in the interests of the wealthy, at the expense of everyone else, and Trump has no natural connections with the latter.
One strategic mistake that I think Trump may make, his supporters will dissipate if he isn’t seen as the target that he has been since he entered politics. His first term was four years of media attacks on a daily basis. If he should be seen as a respected statesman (a stretch, I know), his hucksterish mentality may be exposed to his detriment.
Childish temper tantrums….sums trump up IMHO.
For one thing, who could take anything that David Corn says seriously. I don’t.
Also, the media have largely deserted trying to tell truth or even be truthful, and have hounded those who have tried in recent years, David Corn included, and largely deserve to what ever scorn is directed at them. Trump might be awful, but the media who have excoriated him are doubly at fault.
The media also fail to see that Trump likes to provoke and fall for it every time.
Yeah. Mother Jones used to be something other than a corrupt mouthpiece of the DNC. They no longer have any legitimacy at all.
Zuckerberg admitted to Congress that he censored on FB for the Democrats. FAIR, of all organizations, should be concerned with the continuous censorship we’re seeing. I saw the mainstream media destroy RFK Jr, in his 19 month campaign, he had only two (2) interviews on msm (Erin Burnett on CNN was one) – they trashed him and never allowed him to respond. I think they did the same thing to Trump. Hillary Clinton and John Kerry are calling for amending the 1st Amendment – we should all be concerned.
FAIR has made clear that it operates squarely within the media’s liberal consensus of “Trump derangement” — now going so far as to cite the rabid David Corn!
Maybe media criticism *from within the milieu and assumptions of liberal media* was always a doomed effort, but now FAIR is just another liberal outlet defending elite corporate media *ideals* & decrying the erosion of ‘norms’ and ‘principles’ which were never based in reality to begin with. Apparently FAIR’s writers are unwilling to confront the ways in which their politics led to the current situation. Instead it’s “Corporate media is awful — and we’re outraged that Trump might attack it!”
The press has been propagandizing us with hoaxes like that of the “pogroms” against Israeli soccer hooligans. Frankly, no news at all is better than those lies.
I agree with most of these comments and yes David Corn isn’t serious on any level. The fact is FAIR is just another liberal outlet often defending the rich social elite and the now the exposed and also elite, Democratic party. The MSM, the legacy press and FAIR (and many others) hasn’t asked the proper questions or worse yet, perhaps covered up, countless items for quite some. Exhibit one: President Biden whereby it took a debate last Spring for everyone to see the total and complete mental decline of the man, who was unable to function without a teleprompter. Has ANYONE examined for a fact who was in charge and calling the presidential shots for well over the past year ? Seriously people. As mentioned above, We The People been propagandizing with countless hoaxes for quite some time now. Its frankly incredible.
I’m sixty-seven years old. A United States citizen of the ‘boomer generation.’ My father was a sought after Democratic strategist, in the fifties and sixties in the state of Wisconsin – the state where the presidential primary was invented. My point here: I have been a student of politics from a young age, living in a democratic leaning family who remained committed to the values and principles of the party which put the middle class first. That party has gone the way of the dodo. While the republicans are as vile, the Democrats have steadily moved away from the values which gave the common citizen a real chance at carving out a life of accomplishment, of purpose. Now, they adore foreign conflict and have turned our federal health agencies over to the pharmaceutical industry, all to the detriment of our health, standard of living, vitality as a society. The legacy media industry performs as an orchestrated deep state tool, pumping out the fear and hate rhetoric, to create unprecedented paranoia within American society. All while purposely leaving out the “journalism part of presenting accurate facts behind what actually transpired” for how we got here. Trump is threatening the power structure or status quo, using his low brow methods to communicate the actual truth – that Washington DC is a swamp of corruption. Sadly, it’s time for me to acknowledge FAIR is anything but ‘fairness and accuracy in reporting.’ I’m outa here.
You guys don’t want the truth, you want to keep your cognitive dissonance bubble intact.
Many of you folks in the comment section apparently feel it’s okay to silence “corrupt” media with blizzards of lawsuits and executive actions. I have plenty of problems with “liberal media” but what Trump is doing will neither reform them or put them out of business. What will put many independent news outlets and activists groups is H.R. 9495, which would give the president broad powers to target organizations they don’t like. Trump could wield this power to shut down ANY nonprofit organization that challenges his MAGA agenda. It would silence opposition at a moment when we need to oppose Trump more resolutely than ever.
Dismiss this at your peril.