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Trump’s War on Words
Like a petulant child, Felon Trump pulls the welcome mat from the People’s House
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On Friday, Convicted Felon Donald Trump didn’t "ban" CNN, MSNOW, and Politico from the White House. What he did was post one of his typical temper tantrums on that cesspool of a social media platform, Truth Social, about "FICTION and LIES," and then, because nobody in that used-to-be-hallowed building has the testicular fortitude to tell the toddler “no”, the Secret Service spent Saturday morning disabling press badges like a landlord changing the locks on a tenant he never bothered to legally evict.
When a reporter asked Trump why he would do such a thing, the (theoretically) most powerful (and yet simultaneously most stupid) man in the free world with an entire Department of Justice at his fingertips, offered this legal masterpiece of an answer: “No reason.” When asked what the ban would even look like, he said, and I’m quoting this because you cannot make it up: “It’s a very simple ban…I don’t want them in my office. I don’t want them here. I would say the ban would go as far as you can.” Folks, that’s not a policy; that’s a petulant child refusing to eat his vegetables.
But then came the part that should really give you cause for pause: Trump told reporters, out loud and on the record, that he knows this probably won’t survive a legal challenge, but he’s doing it anyway: “I think it’s good to point it out whether it survives or doesn’t.” The President of the United States just confessed, in advance, that this is a stunt he expects to lose. He’s not trying to win a legal argument. He’s just trying to make a point, and the point is: “I can do this to you, and you can’t stop me fast enough to make it matter.” Except, you and I both know we’ve been here before…several times. Trump is a known repeat offender and his rap sheet is getting long enough that it needs its own filing cabinet.
Let’s roll the tape from 2018: my good friend, Jim Acosta, then working for CNN, dared to ask Trump an uncomfortable question. Trump typically didn’t like the challenge and next thing you know, he pulls Jim’s credentials. A federal judge (a Trump appointee, no less) looks at this shitshow and says, absolutely TF not, and orders Jim’s hard pass reinstated immediately because the White House trampled his due process rights.
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Fast forward to just last year: the Associated Press understandably refuses to call the Gulf of Mexico anything other than its correct and proper name. Trump petulantly gets the AP locked out of the press pool. The AP sues and a federal judge rules the action was “contrary to the First Amendment.” That case is still winding its way through the appeals process, because apparently losing once isn’t instructive for Trump.
But access denial is just his entry-level offense. This Trump Regime has been busy trying to expand its toolbox of terrible ideas. Trump’s weaponized DOJ has now taken to sending FBI agents to reporters’ homes to serve grand jury subpoenas and, in at least one case, agents flashed a warrant to seize a reporter’s electronic devices.
Then there's Stars and Stripes, a newspaper with nearly 100 years of editorial independence. This summer, after the paper's editor and a reporter spoke out about interference from Department of Defense leadership, the Pentagon fired both of them, along with the publisher, for "insubordination." These firings came just days after the paper reported on sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln suffering through a 286-day uninterrupted deployment at sea. The message was clear: report something embarrassing, get canned for "insubordination."
All of the above has been taking place against the backdrop of the White House quietly seizing control of the press pool selection process from the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA). Regulatory agencies like the FCC have been intimidating and threatening media companies over their content. Trump has stripped federal funding from public television and radio, gutting the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Not to mention the fact he has made it his personal mission to sue major news organizations when his little feelings get hurt. The Pentagon has slapped new access restrictions on reporters who won't sign pledges to limit their own coverage. The Treasury Department denied G20 credentials to journalists it doesn’t like. This is a coordinated, multi-agency assault on the Fourth Estate.
So let’s talk the law, because that’s where this latest stupidity will actually get decided, NOT on Truth Social. The controlling precedent is Sherrill v. Knight, a 1977 case that should be tattooed on the inside of every White House press office’s eyelids at this point. The holding is not complicated: once the White House opens up access to the press corps generally, it cannot arbitrarily pull that access from a specific outlet or reporter, and it cannot do so based on the content of their coverage. The case goes on to say if you’re going to deny someone access, you have to give them notice of why and also give them a chance to respond. Before, not after.
For CNN, MSNOW, and Politico, Trump gave zero notice and thus far, those outlets have had zero opportunity to respond. What he DID do was give a reason so content-based it’s basically Exhibit A in the case against himself: Trump publicly whined on Truth Social about “constant ‘reporting’ FAKE NEWS.” That’s a textbook definition of viewpoint-based justification, which is precisely the category of reasoning Sherrill forbids. Trump was dumb enough to say the quiet part loud.
First Amendment specialists all say it’s not even a close call. Legal expert, Theodore Boutrous, told NPR the so-called ban is, on its face, unconstitutional. Jameel Jaffer, Executive Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, stated, “The First Amendment prohibits the president from punishing journalists because he doesn’t like their coverage…With so many courts having ruled against him on exactly this point, you’d think President Trump would have learned this lesson by now.” In other words, Trump is gonna lose and he’s gonna lose big, if CNN, MSNOW, and Politico file suit.
But, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out the elephant in the room, at least from my perspective. The same WHCA currently invoking Sherrill to defend its members is the same WHCA that went ahead and rescheduled the White House Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD) after gunfire disrupted the first attempt. And then even though they didn’t have to do so, they invited Trump back. He showed up this past July, spent more than an hour insulting his political opponents as well as the journalists in the room, and he topped it off by donning a “Trump 2028” hat to troll them. The WHCA predictably will keep inviting Trump to its house, while Trump predictably will keep uninviting them to his.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
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