How Trump might go after the press
JD Vance might have recently given us a preview of how Trump would go after journalists he doesn't like
If Donald Trump is again elected president in November of next year, he’s promised he will be ready to seek revenge on the press upon returning to the White House. Donald Trump has long had an adversarial relationship with the press—the “enemy of the people”—and he’s made it clear he wants to use the power of the presidency to punish media outlets he dislikes.
During this campaign, Trump has said he plans to “rout the fake news media” and has suggested the federal government should “come down hard” on networks like MSNBC. It’s become clear a second Trump term would be significantly more authoritarian and more effective than the first one, so it’s worth considering how Trump might go after the press.
Past presidents, including Trump, have gone after journalists who’ve published government secrets using the Espionage Act. This would be quite ironic considering Trump himself has been charged with violating the Espionage Act in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. Trump could certainly utilize that law to target journalists, but presumably the government would have to make the case that the journalist disseminated classified material.
One way he might be able to more broadly attack the press could have recently presented itself in a letter written to the Department of Justice by Sen. JD Vance (R-OH). Though Vance said on Twitter on Dec. 4th that everyone writing articles about how Trump could become a dictator needed to take a “chill pill,” he decided to send a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Dec. 6th arguing that the Justice Department should investigate one of the authors of those articles that claimed Trump could become a dictator if he’s elected again.
The article in question was written by Washington Post contributing editor Robert Kagan, and it outlines what could happen if Trump became an American tyrant.
Vance wrote:
“I wish to address to your attention a recent opinion piece published in the pages of a widely- circulated American newspaper. Based on my review of public charging documents that the Department of Justice has filed in courts of law, I suspect that one or both of you might characterize this article as an invitation to ‘insurrection,’ a manifestation of criminal ‘conspiracy,’ or an attempt to bring about civil war.
He essentially argues in his letter to Garland that because the article suggests Democratic governors could resist a Trump dictatorship that this constitutes a call for secession or treason. Really.
Absurdity aside, I think this could very well represent a blueprint for how Trump might go after the press during a second term. Trump would surely install an attorney general who would do his bidding, he loves to project and he loves revenge. He’s the “I know you are but what am I?” kind of authoritarian.
Since Trump has been charged with being involved in criminal conspiracies and has been accused of inciting an insurrection, I could easily see Trump trying to throw those accusations back at his perceived enemies, including the press, in order to achieve his goals of retribution.
Someone on MSNBC or CNN says Trump is acting like a dictator? They’re part of a criminal conspiracy and are trying to incite an insurrection. Tell the attorney general to open an investigation into them and the network. Ruin them. They’re an enemy of the state. You can imagine this happening. Trump has said during this campaign that he would investigate his political enemies if he was elected, and that could include the press.
Even if these investigations didn’t go anywhere, court battles can be extremely expensive and can sometimes ruin lives. Trump says he wants to go after the press, and he’s surely thinking of every way he could possibly go about that, and I’d suggest this could be one way he might do it.