It was just a small piece of news about a seemingly ordinary bureaucratic decision. But some White House reporters saw more significance last week. As CBS News I mentionedpresident-elect Donald TrumpThe new press secretary will begin work without any of the traditional trappings of the job: the spacious, high-ceilinged office in the West Wing located steps from the Oval Office. Instead, the properties will go to the deputy chief of staff, shocking the press secretary Carolyn Leavitt to more modest locations in the near upper pressure space. Reporters were quick to read it as a signal: The president’s chief envoy to the media had been symbolically demoted even before she officially began her duties.
The reaction suggests it doesn’t take much to stir up the people covering the president. After Trump’s chaotic first term, and a bruising campaign last year in which he declared he wanted “revenge” on his perceived opponents, journalists have become sensitive to even small tremors. On the eve of Trump’s second term, they are preparing not only for his usual rhetorical criticism, but for much worse.
Woe Trump Fire unwanted reporters In the White House briefing room? Suspension of daily press briefings? Do we abandon the presidential press pool, or do we close the White House grounds to the media altogether? Will he continue to sue news organizations? Is he trying to “eliminate” funding for public broadcasters like NPR and PBS, or copy the television licenses of commercial broadcasters?
None of these considerations constitute theory, because Trump has either done or threatened to do all of these things in the past. Trump’s attacks against the media have certainly become more vicious and intimidating since he lost power in 2020. File a lawsuit against The Washington Post legend bob Woodward, Polls in Iowa J. Ann Selzer and their employers, the Des Moines Register Gannett, CNN, and ABC News (it won a $16 million settlement from the latter in December). Trump student CBS surrendered its broadcast license as punishment Editing and promotion From a Kamala Harris Clip from A 60 minutes interview. As previously reported by ABC, its moderators checked his health during his debate with Harris. (Official spokesman Des Moines Register He said the lawsuit was baseless, and Selzer’s lawyers issued a statement asserting that it violated well-established constitutional principles.)
The prospect of a second Trump term seems particularly troubling to some White House reporters, because the terms are different this time. Trump will be a lame duck from day one, so he won’t have to moderate his worst tendencies to get re-elected. “I don’t think he intends to send journalists to Guantanamo, but who the hell knows,” a veteran TV journalist told me this week. “I think he will be on the attack from day one. Why would we think otherwise?
The journalist (who spoke on the background because he was not authorized by his employer to speak on the record) noted that Trump has some powerful new allies in his war on the media. Elon Musk– The richest man in the world and owner of X –Routinely Spread Pro-Trump misinformation to his 212 million followers during the campaign (Musk will be co-chair of Trump’s budget-cutting committee, the Department of Government Efficiency). The second technology billionaire, one of the founders of Facebook mark Zuckerberg, He banned Trump from his platforms after the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, but has recently become friends with Trump as well. After meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Zuckerberg announced last week that Facebook and Instagram would dispense with independent fact-checking, opening the door wider to Trump’s distortions and outright lies.
Another broadcast journalist, a former White House chief of staff during Trump’s first term, said Trump could do “huge damage” with his control of federal agencies. Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services Robert F. kennedy jr, It was suggested Banning drug advertisements on television That would likely undermine a major financial backer of network and cable news programming. Meanwhile, a politicized Justice Department could thwart proposed media mergers, as the Justice Department did under Trump I tried to do it In 2018 when Time Warner, CNN’s parent company, sought to merge with AT&T.
Even relatively obscure agencies can get in on the act. Trump-appointed FCC Chairman brendan Carr, “It could cause misery” for streaming companies like Disney and Comcast by holding up license renewals, the second radio journalist said. In Trump’s first term I tried to manipulate Federally funded Voice of America work; His choice of MAGA-friendly conspiracy theorist Lake Carey The Voice of America director also suggests he will try again.
It may be the most dangerous number of all cash battle, Trump’s nominee to head the FBI. Patel, a Trump loyalist who remained in his first administration, told the former Trump adviser: Steve Bannon In a 2023 podcast, “We will go after people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden Fraud in the presidential elections.” Placing Patel at the helm of the FBI would give him full control of the government’s investigative machinery, and perhaps turn his rhetoric into reality.
