Trump threatens media with ‘treason’ for unfavorable Iran war coverage
As a man seeking to create a state-run media, Donald Trump has never been a fan of the First Amendment right to Freedom of the Press. So, it should be of great concern to lovers of liberty that he is openly advocating that media outlets be charged with “treason” for reporting what he likes to call “fake news” (i.e. news unfavorable to his omnipotence) about his unconstitutional war in Iran.
In a Truth Social post over the weekend, Trump suggested leveling “treason” charges against media outlets that he says are reporting false information about the Iran war even as the human and economic costs of his illegal military assault continue to mount (via Alternet.com):
In a tirade posted to his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that media outlets he accused of circulating “fake news” should “be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information.” The maximum penalty for treason in the US is death.
Trump specifically called out the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal for reporting over the weekend that “five US Air Force refueling planes were struck and damaged on the ground at Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia.” Citing two unnamed US officials, the Journal noted that “the tankers were hit during an Iranian missile strike on the Saudi base,” and that the planes were “damaged but not fully destroyed and are being repaired.”
The US president called the story “false reporting” without substantively refuting its content. Trump wrote that four of the refueling planes are “in service” and one “will soon be flying the skies”—none of which is inconsistent with the Journal’s reporting. (Emphasis mine)
Trump’s latest threat against the free press came after his Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, threatened Saturday to pull the broadcasting licenses of media outlets he accused of “running hoaxes and news distortions.” Carr did not provide specific examples.
Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions – also known as the fake news – have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.
The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.
When a political candidate is able to win a landslide election victory after (sic) in the face of hoaxes and distortions, there is something very wrong. It means the public has lost faith and confidence in the media. And we can’t allow that to happen. (Emphasis mine)
Following Carr’s threat, Trump posted a self-aggrandizing infographic bragging about how he has been “reshaping the media” into his own version of a state-run media that would make even Joseph Goebbels jealous:
Not to be outdone, the cosplay soldier-wannabe masquerading as the non-existent Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, also declared his displeasure with the media’s reporting on the Iran war when he expressed his desire to see CNN turned into a branch of Trump’s state-run media — to be run by David Ellison, the son of AI Tech Bro Larry Ellison (via CommonDreams.org):
Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth used part of his Friday press conference to complain about what he described as negative and “fake” news stories about the administration’s illegal war on Iran, openly pining for the day the son of billionaire Trump donor Larry Ellison takes control of CNN.
“The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better,” said Hegseth, pointing specifically to CNN’s report Thursday that “the Pentagon and National Security Council significantly underestimated Iran’s willingness to close the Strait of Hormuz in response to US military strikes while planning the ongoing operation.”
David Ellison is the CEO of Paramount Skydance, which is poised to acquire CNN owner Warner Bros. Discovery after a lengthy bidding war with Netflix. The deal still must receive regulatory approval from the Trump administration and in Europe, and some state attorneys general have vowed to closely scrutinize the agreement. (Emphasis mine)
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m thinking that regulatory approval by the Trump administration isn’t going to be all that hard to get, regardless of how “closely” some state AGs “scrutinize the agreement.” Case in point: Carr has already expressed his approval of the CNN takeover, telling CNBC last month that he thought it was a “good deal, and I think it should get through pretty quickly.” Shocking, right?
Donald Trump has never been a fan of the First Amendment rights to Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Speech. Throughout his 2016 campaign and continuing throughout his first term, Trump routinely played the worn-out “Fake News” card against any media outlet that reported stories that failed to massage his massive ego. Declaring them to be “the enemy of the people” — Joseph Goebbels would be so proud — Trump threatened to silence his critics in the press through the use of libel lawsuits and by revoking the broadcast licenses of major networks.
Trump began setting things in motion for creating a state-run media in the first year of his first term in office when he gave Sinclair a sweetheart deal that would have allowed the media giant to have control over a large majority of US households. In October 2017, his FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai — a holdover from the Obama administration — reinstated an old rule meant to pave the way for a $3.9 billion TV merger between Sinclair and Tribune — allowing the company to own enough stations to reach over 70% of US households.
Pai also issued a second decision that eliminated the requirement for TV stations to maintain local studios in the markets where they are licensed, thus opening the door for “local news” to be controlled in places like Washington DC.
Combined, these decisions would have given Sinclair control of TV news in approximately 72 percent of US households. Besides the fact that this consolidation ran in direct opposition to the FCC’s mission of promoting competition, diversity, and locality of the public airwaves, there was a conflict of interest involved because Sinclair had close ties to Trump, Steve Bannon, and Breitbart News at the time.
Do you remember when Jimmy Kimmel was suspended? After allegedly saying some unflattering things about Charlie Kirk following his assassination, Kimmel was given his walking papers by ABC’s parent company, the Disney Entertainment division of the Walt Disney Company. The decision came just hours after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr publicly criticized Kimmel’s remarks and suggested that regulatory consequences would follow.
It was during the Kimmel suspension that Trump re-opened his state-run media playbook and suggested that networks who were “biased” against him should have their broadcast licenses revoked. Speaking to reporters, Trump said, “They’re 97% against, they give me only bad press. They’re getting a license. I would think maybe their license should be taken away.”
Kimmel’s suspension also coincided with another media consolidation — Nexstar Media Group’s $6.2 billion merger with Tegna which is still awaiting FCC approval. Nexstar’s attempt to join Trump’s state-run media has been less direct and has taken a little longer to create.
We begin with (where else?) FOX News, the network home of his first-term advisor and shadow chief of staff, Sean Hannity. Like Sinclair, Trump wanted to reward the network that once branded itself “fair and balanced” for the part they played in his election in 2016. This is when, early in the second year of his first term, that Trump selected the former co-president of FOX News Bill Shine — after a major push from Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly — to the White House to serve in a senior communications role.
The selection was controversial at the time because, in addition to his tainted history of turning FOX into Trump TV, Shine’s past was clouded by his forced resignation from FOX News after his poor handling of sexual harassment scandals involving former Chief Executive Roger Ailes and the aforementioned Bill O’Reilly. After only a year on the job, Shine resigned as Trump’s communications guy to be the senior advisor to his 2020 re-election campaign.
After Trump’s loss, Shine took a position as an advisor with NewsNation, a news network owned by . . . you guessed it . . . Nexstar. One of the personalities featured on the upstart news network is none other than Bill O’Reilly who, in likely obedience to Nexstar execs, declared that the decision to cancel Jimmy Kimmel was about “responsibility,” not “censorship.”
Staying in Trump’s good graces has become standard operating procedure for media outlets who want to be a part of his state-run media, so caving to the FCC chair when he complains about a late-night TV host shouldn’t be all that surprising, particularly when we remember that Jimmy Kimmel wasn’t the first to go down (he was later reinstated).
Stephen Colbert was cancelled by CBS. A week following the cancellation, the FCC approved Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount CBS. And I’m sure this is purely coincidental, but Sinclair and Nexstar both own local CBS affiliates, with Nexstar being the largest independent operator of CBS affiliates. What are the odds?
Trump is openly advocating that media outlets be charged with “treason” for unfavorable coverage of his unconstitutional war in Iran, and his FCC chair is willing to hold broadcast licenses hostage if these outlets continue displeasing the dictator wannabe.
Better gird your loins, my fellow conservatives. The state-run media Trump is creating is real, and there will be much more of this in the days ahead.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties. He the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty.
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