Harping on Natalie

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments. 

 Jonathan Lemire at The Atlantic:

You are reading this story only because the White House didn’t want you to.

I’ll explain. This past Sunday, Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia—who has become quite good at delivering viral campaign sound bites, slickly filmed by multiple cameras—unleashed a blistering indictment of President Trump’s leadership. Ossoff, a former documentary filmmaker who is generating 2028 buzz, denounced Trump’s handling of the Iran war this way: “While he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”

It was a pithy and well-structured attack, but not so different from the broadsides delivered daily by Democrats on the campaign trail or on MS NOW. But one new word stood out: Natalie.

The line got a knowing laugh from a handful of observers in the room, and it electrified a subset of political obsessives on social media, who took to their favorite platforms and group chats with some version of “Oh, he went there!” or “I can’t believe he did that!” But although Ossoff’s aside resonated with the junkies, the majority of Americans likely had no idea who this Natalie woman was, and might never have given it another thought.

But then the West Wing lost its mind. And Trump did too. Their pushback was so overwhelming, so obviously coordinated, so ugly and personal that it became a story. The White House inadvertently created news, as well as a permission structure for even the most cautious, fact-based media organizations to take on the topic. Which is why the name Natalie Harp is now everywhere.

And the resulting stories have not benefited the Trump White House.

 

SCOOP: Trump aide Natalie Harp worked at White House without security clearance for a year

Both people said Harp’s reasoning for failing to complete the process was unknown. After concerns mounted among the White House counsel’s office and security officials, the president…

— Jake Traylor (@jake__traylor) August 19, 2026

Maggie Haberman shares new details about Trump aide Natalie Harp and her rise inside the White House: “She is a channel by which… foreign leaders try to reach him.” pic.twitter.com/ggzoV0DPk2

— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) August 20, 2026

Snowflake in June

Our books have discussed Trump's low character, which was on display this weekend. 

 

WOW -- Trump crashes out and cuts his interview with Welker short as she presses him on his lack of evidence for claiming elections are rigged

"You're either crooked or you're stupid. Let's call it quits. Because I've had enough. Thank you darling," he tells her."

"I traveled… pic.twitter.com/qQaNIDnX4y

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 7, 2026

Trying to Control the Media

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments.  He and his allies are using legal and regulatory pressure to stifle dissent.

Ashley Ahn at NYT:

Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, threatened on Saturday to revoke broadcasters’ licenses over their coverage of the war with Iran, his latest move in a campaign to stomp out what he sees as liberal bias in broadcasts.

As the war entered its third week, Mr. Carr accused broadcasters of “running hoaxes and news distortions” in a social media post and warned them to “correct course before their license renewals come up.”

“Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not,” he said.

Mr. Carr shared a Truth Social post by President Trump that criticized the news media for its coverage of the war with Iran. Mr. Trump referred to a story published by The Wall Street Journal that reported five American refueling planes had been struck in Saudi Arabia, claiming its headline was “intentionally misleading.” He accused the news media of wanting the United States to lose the war.

Dow Jones & Company, which publishes The Wall Street Journal, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a similar vein, delivered a lengthy complaint about CNN’s coverage of the war in the Middle East during a news conference Friday, saying that he looked forward to the news network being controlled by the billionaire David Ellison.

A Burst of Fascism

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments.The DHS killing of a disarmed man is among the worst.

April Rubin at Axios:

Journalist Don Lemon was arrested by federal agents on Thursday night following backlash over his coverage of an anti-ICE protest in a Minnesota church, his lawyer said Friday morning.

Why it matters: The former CNN anchor's arrest comes after a magistrate judge rejected the DOJ's initial attempt to bring a case against him last week, citing insufficient evidence that he violated any law.

His charges were not immediately known.

Lemon was targeted by conservative influencers and politicians after interviewing protesters, congregants and a pastor during the protest earlier this month.

...

Zoom out: Georgia Fort, an independent journalist, was also arrested for her coverage at the church protest, she announced during a livestream."It's hard to understand how we have a Constitution, Constitutional rights, when you can be arrested for being a member of the press," Fort said.

The president of the United States says, “ARREST OBAMA NOW!” May I ask you: To whom is he speaking? Is it a command? Does anyone care? pic.twitter.com/d2xKgIAKlZ

— Jay Nordlinger (@jaynordlinger) January 30, 2026

Josh Dawsey,  Dustin Volz and Sadie Gurman at WSJ: 

Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, has spent months investigating the results of the 2020 election that Donald Trump lost, according to White House officials, a role that took her to a related FBI search of an election center in Georgia on Wednesday.

Gabbard is leading the administration’s effort to re-examine the election and look for potential crimes, a priority for the president, the officials said.

The national intelligence director is usually focused on ensuring the president has the best intelligence available to make national-security decisions. Gabbard has been sidelined from some of those deliberations, including the Venezuela operation earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

She has begun studying information about voting machines, analyzed data from swing states and pursued theories that President Trump has promoted to claim the 2020 election was unfairly taken from him, the officials said, particularly on foreign government interference.

She has regularly briefed Trump and chief of staff Susie Wiles about her inquiry in recent months along with others involved in the investigation. Those include senior Justice Department officials, Trump’s outside ally and lawyer Cleta Mitchell and Kurt Olsen, a lawyer who pushed claims in 2020 that the election was stolen and joined the administration as a special government employee.

Dictator Stuff

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration  has been full of ominous developments.

Trump is calling for the six Democratic lawmakers who urged the military not to follow any illegal orders to be arrested, and he’s reposting replies saying they should be hanged and calling them terrorists. pic.twitter.com/j4m7ZBcm50

— MeidasTouch (@MeidasTouch) November 20, 2025

Hugo Lowell at The Guardian:

Senior White House officials have discussed internally their preference for Paramount Skydance to acquire Warner Bros Discovery in recent weeks, and one official has discussed potential programming changes at CNN with Larry Ellison, the largest shareholder of Paramount.

The discussions, according to people familiar with the matter, come as Paramount portrays itself as the best bid for Warner Bros Discovery, after the company announced last month it was open to offers, because it would have an easier time getting through regulatory review.


Ellison often speaks to connections at the White House but, in at least one of the calls, engaged in a dialogue about possibly axing some of the CNN hosts whom Donald Trump is said to loathe, including Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar, the people said

Trump's Media

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses radical change in the media landscape.

Sarah Ellison at WP:

President Donald Trump has long railed against the “fake news” as an “enemy of the people.” But this week, the president showed how far he has come in finding a new use for the media: as props.

Friendly influencers were summoned to the White House on Wednesday afternoon, as they have been throughout Trump’s second term, to bolster his agenda and attack his targets of the moment. Reporters from mainstream news organizations remained part of the presentation, but mostly as silent foils and heels to be disparaged and critiqued.

“I read more of your stories than I do theirs,” FBI Director Kash Patel told the influencers, gesturing to the reporters at the back of the room, “because you guys are putting out the truth.”

Leigh Kimmins at The  Daily Beast:

ICE Barbie Kristi Noem is now starring in Trump administration airport propaganda.

A slickly produced video featuring the Homeland Security chief began airing Thursday on airport monitors across the country, blaming Democrats for the nine-day-old government shutdown that has already caused massive flight delays and left thousands of aviation employees working without pay.

“Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, many of our operations are impacted and most of our TSA employees are working without pay,” Noem says in the clip, which a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed to Reuters is now being blasted out in airports nationwide.

 

Trump v. the First Amendment

 Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration  has been full of ominous developments. Last week, a gunman murdered Charlie Kirk. Trump and his followers are exploiting the tragedy to attack their opponents --or use the power of government to censor them.

Press Gaggle: Donald Trump Speaks to Reporters On Board Air Force One - September 18, 2025

Donald Trump : Yeah, good. Yeah, I think she's terrible. I think she [Ilan Omar] should be impeached. I think she's terrible. Is she originally from Somalia?

Question: Yes, sir.

Donald Trump: So, how are they doing this? How's their government? Do they have a president? Do they have a council? Do they have anything? Do they have police? I love these people that come from a place with nothing, with nothing, no anything. And then they tell us how to run our country. No, I think she if she got censored, that's great.

If she got impeached that's even better. They impeached me twice for nothing and they impeached me knowing the Republicans are on my side. So, they knew it was just -- and they impeach me, but she should be impeached and it should happen fast. What she says is out of line. Yeah, go ahead. Anybody else?

Question : Mr. President, would you like to see -- Mr. President, are you going to ask Brendan Carr to weigh in on other late-night hosts that you have said should be off the air?

Donald Trump Late night hosts on network television? There is a licensing. I'll give you an example. I read someplace that the networks were 97 percent against me, again 97 percent negative, and yet I won it easily. I won all seven swing states, popular vote, won everything, and then 97 percent against. They give me only bad publicity or press.

I mean, they're getting a license. I would think maybe their license should be taken away. It will be up to Brendan Carr. I think Brendan Carr is outstanding. He's a patriot. He loves our country and he's a tough guy. So, we'll have to see.

Question What do you think on the free speech issue?

Donald Trump  When you think about this, 97 percent of the stories are opposed to me, and yet I win easily the election. It's pretty amazing when you think of it. That shows they have no credibility. Go ahead.

Question  I was just going to agree with you. I mean, could you use that same logic with news? If someone --

Donald Trump In the old days, I remember the old days and every four or five years a network would reapply for its license, and their license is free. You know, they get this valuable thing for free and they reapply for a license. And if they did something wrong, well, I beat George Stephanopoulos -- Slopadopoulos I call him, George Slopadopoulos, they had to pay me $15 million for what he said.

Donald Trump I beat CBS for much more money than that, including advertising and other things, much more money because they totally changed the answer that Kamala gave for the question. I mean, they didn't change it, they took it out and put a different answer in and they didn't want to go to court with that. That's a tough one to go to court with.

Trump, the Struggling Artist

Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.  The Epstein scandal is causing some difficulty for Trump.

 James Liddell at The Independent:

President Donald Trump has strongly pushed back against the bombshell Wall Street Journal report that alleged he drew a “bawdy” sketch in a birthday message to celebrate convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s 50th birthday.

“I never wrote a picture in my life,” he said in a rebuttal to the newspaper, vehemently denying having anything to do with the card.

In a Truth Social tirade late Thursday, the president declared, “I don’t draw pictures.”

Trump is accused of writing a cryptic note that made mention of a “wonderful secret” in his note to the disgraced financier. The Journal reported that the text was surrounded by a drawing of a naked woman, punctuated by a squiggly “Donald” that mimicked pubic hair.

Analysts were quick to pounce on Trump’s denial, including Media Matters chief Angelo Carusone, who told MSNBC, “I can think of three [Trump sketches] off the top of my head that were auctioned.”

Andrew Egger at The  Bulwark:

He called in every favor to try to stop the article’s publication, making phone calls to the paper’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, and its editor, Emma Tucker, and swearing he would sue if they published. Vice President JD Vance called the story “complete and utter bullshit,” asking “Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump?”

This was flailing, back-to-the-wall damage control. Trump’s claim that “I don’t draw pictures” was disproven within minutes of his making it. In fact, a plethora of comparable black-Sharpie doodles drawn by him around that time are already a matter of public record. Vance’s “Does anyone honestly believe this sounds like Donald Trump” question was, if anything, even funnier: The alleged letter was written in 2003, one year after Trump told a reporter that Epstein was a “terrific guy” who “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side” and two years before a hot mic caught Trump telling Billy Bush about his strategy for flirting with women he’d just met: “grab them by the pussy.”

The idea that Murdoch and the Journal would publish a story like this—knowing Trump’s penchant for retributive lawsuits—without being on rock-solid legal footing is laughable; a small army of lawyers no doubt inspected every word of the report. Meanwhile, Trump is the only alleged contributor to deny to the Journal that his letter was real; billionaire Leslie Wexner declined to comment, and attorney Alan Dershowitz simply said that “it’s been a long time and I don’t recall the content of what I may have written.”

Reaching Latino Men

 Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the role of Latino voters.

 Senator Ruben Gallego spoke with David Frum:

One of the things we knew instinctively, because growing up Latino and working class: Latino men do not intently watch Univision, Telemundo. They don’t intently follow politics. They largely are disconnected from the normal avenues of—well, I would say that normal people kind of consume news and political news.

And one of the things that I emphasized on my campaign early on is a nontraditional way to reach these men, because you’ve got to understand the way these guys are. I mean, when I was in construction, I would wake up at 6 a.m., go to the site. Hopefully, it’d be done by 3 p.m. but probably not. So maybe you’re back at home by 5 p.m. You’re dirty as hell. You’re smelly as hell. You’re jumping in the shower, and then maybe, you know, you’re in time—you’ve made it home in time for dinner, right? You’re sitting down to dinner, and then you have probably a couple hours before you zonk out to start the next day.

Do you want to spend that time watching the news? Do you want to spend that time talking politics? No. You want to spend time with your family or with your friends, because your day sucked, and it’s going to suck again tomorrow. And so you do this rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat.

So where are they getting all their information from? Well, a couple places. Number one, they’re getting it from their other coworkers at worksites—which by the way, people forget when it comes to Latino men, the people they’re most likely to work with besides other Latino men are white working-class men, right? And white working-class men are very much politically involved and have a lot of political information that they’re getting. And they’re sharing it with their Latino coworkers, right?

And number two, they’re living off their phones through different social media, whether it’s Instagram, Snapchat, or all this kind of stuff, Twitter. So one of the things that we emphasize is trying to figure out how to get a message, a vibe, about who I was to these Latino male voters early on, so that way they understood, like, Ruben Gallego is a Democrat. Ruben Gallego says he’s for the working class. But then we also had a very strong cultural attachment. Like, He understands me. He actually worked at factories, worked in construction, understands the dignity of work, the responsibility of a man to his family, to provide for his family, and how important that is to me as a man.

And that kind of stuff, we are afraid to approach to get these men to start considering us as Democrats. And then, because we never talk about it, we never give them the dignity of allowing them to be family leaders and not making them feel bad about being family leaders. And then we’re surprised when, year after year, we don’t continue to have this conversation with us, they keep on moving away from us. And it’s a dumb trade-off, because we continue to do that because we think that somehow we’re going to piss off female voters.

And I don’t think that’s the case. Female voters are worried about their sons or daughters and their husbands. They’re worried about the fact that they’re becoming less social. They’re worried about the fact that they’re not actually being productive in life. And they want to have good husbands—heck, they want to have good ex-husbands that are involved with their kids’ lives, and they’re making good pay and paying their child support, things of that nature.

But for some reason, the Democrats have continued this trade-off, and it’s going to continue going until we realize: Making sure [of] people’s economic needs will cross all racial barriers and, if you do it rightly, will also cross these gender gaps that we’re seeing.

Retribution, May 2025

 Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. “We are all afraid,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski said last month. “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. And I’ll tell ya, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

Adam Wren at Politico:

DHS targets Harvard: The Trump administration is revoking Harvard University’s ability to enroll international students, NYT’s Michael Schmidt and Michael Bender scooped, which would potentially force a quarter of the student body to either transfer to another school or risk losing their legal status. Jason Newton, a spokesperson for the university, said the action was unlawful. Harvard plans to sue.

The pretense: The decision stems from an investigation by DHS, which alleges that the university “created a hostile learning environment for Jewish students,” and comes after weeks of haggling between the agency and the university. “It is a privilege, not a right, for universities to enroll foreign students and benefit from their higher tuition payments to help pad their multibillion-dollar endowments,” said DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. “Let this serve as a warning to all universities and academic institutions across the country.”

Critics blasted the move: Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.), a Harvard alum who has been critical of his own alma mater at times, said the administration “is acting just like the most unhinged of the anti-Israel campus protestors last year –– performative, irrational and cruel.”

FTC targets Media Matters: The Federal Trade Commission is demanding documents from liberal advocacy group Media Matters for America “about possible coordination with other media watchdogs accused by Elon Musk of helping orchestrate advertiser boycotts of X,” Reuters’ Jody Godoy and Mike Scarcella scooped.

The pretense: “FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to run the agency, highlighted the potential for a probe in December. ‘We must prosecute any unlawful collusion between online platforms, and confront advertiser boycotts which threaten competition among those platforms,’ Ferguson said in a statement on an unrelated case.” (Notably, this comes as the FTC drops its case against the Microsoft/Activision Blizzard merger and a Pepsi price discrimination lawsuit, which is a good sign of its enforcement priorities.)

...

That’s not all, of course … The DOJ is investigating ActBlue, the Democratic fundraising platform. … The White House is punishing law firms that have represented Trump’s political opponents. … The U.S. attorney in New Jersey has charged Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) for allegedly assaulting law enforcement during a protest outside an ICE facility in Newark. … And Trump or his team have in recent days threatened investigations of New York AG Letitia James, former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Bruce Springsteen, Beyoncé, Bono, Oprah Winfrey, James Comey, “treasonous” aides to Joe Biden, the City of Chicago and the Kennedy Center, as the NYT’s Peter Baker noted.

Trump Media Strategy: Influencers > Reporters

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses Trump's media strategy.

Alex Isenstadt at Axios:

The White House has launched a new Drudge Report-like website devoted to promoting pro-Trump news stories.

Why it matters: The site, called White House Wire, represents the administration's latest effort to circumvent the mainstream media and present itself in a positive light

...

What they're saying: A White House official said the site serves a key strategic purpose: To give pro-Trump influencers a central hub to disseminate Trump-favorable coverage.

• "It's a place for supporters of the president's agenda to get the real news all in one place in a shareable and readable format," the official said.
• "The website will be a one-stop shop for news and is part of the Trump administration's effort to provide transparency and institute policies that put America first," they added.

Justin Baragona at The Independent:

For the second day in a row on Tuesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt held a press briefing exclusively for members of what she called the “new media,” claiming she was fulfilling a promise she made at the start of the Trump administration to speak to “all media outlets.”

Of course, as she laid bare at the start of Monday’s presser, these sessions are mostly a way to take softball questions and applause lines from a host of MAGA sycophants who are absolutely ecstatic to be given the opportunity to sit in the White House and play reporter.

“This is our first official influencer briefing,” Leavitt said at the start of Monday’s event. “Millions of Americans are now turning to social media and independent media outlets to consume their news, and we are embracing that change, not ignoring it.”

Trump Media Control

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

Mike Allen at Axios discusses four elements of Trump's strategy to control the media and suppress dissent:

1. Lawsuits. Before taking office, Trump sued ABC News, CBS News and a former Des Moines Register pollster over coverage. This is a new technique for a president or former president — and one getting results. ABC agreed to pay $15 million to Trump's future presidential library instead of fighting in court. CBS also appears to be heading toward settling. Hard to see how this doesn't encourage more lawsuits and entice future presidents pissed off about coverage to do the same.
2. Blacklists. Trump barred AP from the Oval Office and Air Force One for refusing to use "Gulf of America" instead of "Gulf of Mexico" after he made the change by decree. AP, a global newswire that writes the stylebook most U.S. media outlets follow, has been a pillar of White House coverage for more than a century. Denying access, and mandating word choices, are new tactics for a president. Imagine a Democratic president renaming it the Gulf of Obama — and targeting Fox News for refusing to call it that. Fox and the conservative Newsmax were among the outlets protesting AP retribution. Jacqui Heinrich — Fox News senior White House correspondent, and a White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) board member — wrote on X: "This is a short-sighted decision, and it will feel a lot different when a future Democratic administration kicks out conservative-leaning outlets and other critical voices."
3. Stacking the deck. For decades, until yesterday, the White House had little say in the choice of media organizations responsible for covering official actions and trips via what's known as the press pool. In response to AP's suit over access, the White House seized control of this process, formerly run by WHCA. Trump has promised to keep traditional media companies part of the mix. But if the new system holds, he and future presidents could surround themselves with friendly reporters asking friendly questions — and punish those who don't.
4. Shielding Cabinet officials. At the Pentagon, where reporters both work onsite and serve in a rotating pool that travels with the SecDef, a similar purge has unfolded. First, the Pentagon booted NBC News, the N.Y. Times, Politico and NPR from their physical workspace as part of a new "annual media rotation program" — substituting friendly outlets + HuffPost, which had no Pentagon reporter. A week later, CNN was ousted from its workspace. Good riddance, MAGA supporters say. But will a future Democratic president do unto conservative news sources as the Trump administration has done to the legacy media?

Trump and GOP Wage War on the Media

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. 

Sarah Fischer at Axios:

In his first four weeks, Trump's administration has: 

• Banned the Associated Press: The White House last week said it would bar the AP from future events in the Oval Office and Air Force One over its decision not to directly follow Trump's executive order renaming "Gulf of Mexico" as "Gulf of America" in its style guidance.
• Ended federal news subscriptions: The State Department on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of news subscriptions around the world. The directive came shortly after the executive branch said it will stop spending money on Politico subscriptions after paying the outlet millions last year.
• Reshuffled Pentagon press: The Defense Department informed several outlets, including NPR, NBC News, Politico and CNN that they had to move out of their workspaces at the Correspondents' Corridor in the Pentagon, although their press credentials will remain intact. They will be replaced by mostly conservative outlets such as Washington Examiner, Daily Caller, and Newsmax, and others under a new otation system.

Zoom in: These moves, while punitive, are temporary and a new president can easily reverse them. Broader efforts to target media companies by Trump, his administration and a Republican-led Congress recently could be harder to unwind.

• Congressional PBS, NPR probe: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has called on the CEOs of NPR and PBS to testify at a DOGE subcommittee hearing about what she says is "systemically biased content." It's the first hearing to be announced for the subcommittee. Both broadcasters rely on congressionally appropriated funding to survive.
• FCC PBS, NPR probe: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is also investigating the two public broadcasters over whether their member stations violated FCC rules around airing commercial ads. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr implied that the investigation could help influence Congress' funding decision.
• FCC Comcast/NBC investigation: Carr informed Comcast he is opening an investigation into the company's diversity, equity and inclusion practices. It marked the first public effort by the new administration to target a private company for its DEI initiatives.
• FCC CBS inquiry: Carr opened an inquiry into CBS News to evaluate whether it violated the FCC's news distortion rules when it edited a "60 Minutes" interview with 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris during the campaign. The inquiry adds pressure to CBS, as it considers whether to settle a separate lawsuit filed against it last year by Trump before he took office.

Reality check: A strong U.S. legal and regulatory framework makes it difficult for Trump and his regulators to go after media companies without likely having to defend at least some of their actions in court.

Iowa pollster Ann Selzer files an absolutely blistering response to Trump’s lawsuit against her and the Des Moines Register, calling it a flagrant attempt to circumvent the First Amendment. https://t.co/o20lTv1Sde pic.twitter.com/N8DhxYmsUH

— David Enrich (@davidenrich) February 21, 2025

The @AP sues over White House punishment for not using Trump's preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico: "This targeted attack on the AP’s editorial independence and ability to gather and report the news strikes at the very core of the First Amendment." https://t.co/uy4HVcEodD

— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) February 21, 2025

Trump v. Freedom of the Press

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.

At NYT, Jim Rutenberg briefly describes Nixon's war on the press and then writes:

The scandal he thought he had outrun, Watergate, would ultimately force his resignation. And his brazen anti-press moves, which initially appeared to cow journalists, would stall in an onslaught of revelations about his role in covering up wrongdoing in his West Wing.

That dark chapter in media history is suddenly relevant again, as the second administration of President Trump resorts to a heavy-handed approach to traditional journalists that has all the hallmarks of his predecessor’s attempted press crackdown some 50 years ago.

...

Much of the early action has emanated from the F.C.C., which is an independent agency with a bipartisan board whose chair is selected by the president. Mr. Trump named a longtime Republican commissioner, Brendan Carr, to the post in November, calling him a “warrior for free speech.”

Already raising Nixon-style threats to tie television-station license renewals to government determinations about content — which the agency has some leeway to do under regulations that still require licensed broadcasters to serve the “public interest” — Mr. Carr has revived previously dismissed complaints against the three traditional broadcast networks, and opened an investigation into PBS and NPR.

An inquiry into CBS played out in public in recent days when the network cooperated with the F.C.C.’s request for information relating to the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview last fall with Vice President Kamala Harris. Mr. Trump had accused the network, in his own multibillion-dollar lawsuit, of deceptively altering the interview to boost Ms. Harris’s presidential campaign, which CBS denies.

Mr. Carr has said the outcome of the inquiry could factor in his agency’s review of a pending merger between CBS’s parent company, Paramount, and Skydance, creating a division between him and Democrats on the commission.

David Enrich at NYT:

The lawsuits are part of a broader campaign by Mr. Trump and his allies to attack major news organizations. This week, the president and his close ally Elon Musk falsely accused media outlets, including The New York Times, of being government-financed organs of the state. (Some government agencies purchase subscriptions to the publications.) Some of Mr. Trump’s nominees for top administration jobs, as well as Mr. Musk, have threatened to sue media companies for critical articles. The Federal Communications Commission is investigating outlets including NPR and PBS.

...

Days before the presidential election, Edward Paltzik, a lawyer with a small New York law firm, sued CBS on Mr. Trump’s behalf in federal court in Amarillo, Texas. The suit argued that CBS “doctored” its interview with Ms. Harris to present her in a positive light, violating a state law against “false, misleading or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce.” It sought $10 billion in damages.

There was no evidence in the complaint that CBS edited the interview in a manipulative fashion, instead of for clarity or brevity. There was no evidence that the interview misled viewers or damaged Mr. Trump. And it was unclear what legal standing Mr. Trump had to bring a lawsuit in Texas, where he does not live and which was not the site of the interview.

But filing the suit in Amarillo meant it would be heard by Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, a Trump appointee who has been hospitable to conservative lawsuits that many lawyers regard as meritless.

About six weeks later, in December, Mr. Paltzik filed the suit against The Des Moines Register and Ms. Selzer in state court in Iowa, claiming that Ms. Selzer’s poll had been warped to harm Mr. Trump. The suit did not present evidence that the poll was deliberately skewed, that Mr. Trump had been hurt or that he had standing to file a lawsuit in Iowa.

 

Early Authoritarian Moves

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Our next book looks at the return of Donald Trump.

He is planning an authoritarian agenda and would take care to eliminate any internal dissent.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Maggie Haberman, David Enrich and Alan Feuer at The New York Times.

President-elect Donald J. Trump sued The Des Moines Register for running a poll before the election that showed him trailing Vice President Kamala Harris, escalating his threats to seek retribution against the mainstream media and his political enemies.

Mr. Trump has long said that people he claims have wronged him should be prosecuted, including President Biden and his family; Jack Smith, the special counsel who charged Mr. Trump with trying to overturn the 2020 election and mishandling classified documents; and Liz Cheney, the former representative from Wyoming who helped lead the House investigation into Mr. Trump’s efforts to cling to power in 2020.

...

Just this week, Mr. Trump’s allies in Congress moved to support his efforts to seek retribution against Ms. Cheney, a chair of the House committee that investigated the events of Jan. 6, 2021, and recommended criminal charges against Mr. Trump.

On Tuesday, a House oversight subcommittee issued a report recommending that Ms. Cheney herself face criminal investigation for some of the work she did while investigating Mr. Trump. The report accused Ms. Cheney of secretly communicating with one of the committee’s star witnesses, Cassidy Hutchinson, without Ms. Hutchinson’s lawyer knowing.

Ms. Hutchinson gave significant but disputed testimony at one of the committee’s public hearings, describing, among other things, how Mr. Trump was warned that his supporters were carrying weapons on Jan. 6 but expressed no concern because they were not a threat to him.

By recommending that Ms. Cheney be investigated — including for possibly violating the same federal obstruction count that the congresswoman recommended against Mr. Trump — the House Republicans appeared to be laying the groundwork for a potential criminal prosecution. Mr. Trump has repeatedly said that Ms. Cheney and other members of the Jan. 6 committee should face charges and jail time.

In Mr. Trump’s own telling, winning his civil legal actions isn’t always the point.

Mr. Trump, who has often attacked journalists publicly for details in news accounts that he hasn’t liked, famously lost a libel case that he brought against the writer Timothy O’Brien over Mr. O’Brien’s description of Mr. Trump’s net worth as much less than he claimed it to be.

The case played out over the span of years. But during the 2016 election, Mr. Trump told The Washington Post that it was worth it, even with the loss.

“I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees, and they spent a whole lot more,” he said of Mr. O’Brien and his book publisher. “I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about.”

 

At 3 o'clock in the morning, Trump called for Liz Cheney to "be investigated by the FBI." pic.twitter.com/wcGMtpz2Ba

— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) December 18, 2024

Lloyd Green at The Guardian:

Then there is ABC News. The network recently agreed to pay $15m to settle a Trump defamation suit. Last spring George Stephanopoulos, its Sunday talkshow host, repeatedly said Trump was liable for rape when a jury had actually found him liable for abuse.

But there is more to it than that. In August 2023, Trump lost his counter-claim for defamation against Carroll. Dismissing the Trump counter-claim, a judge in New York, Lewis A Kaplan, said that when Carroll repeated her allegation that Trump raped her, her words were “substantially true”. Kaplan also set out in detail why it may be said that Trump raped Carroll.

In May, Stephanopoulos said he would not be “cowed out of doing my job”. This weekend, however, he and ABC expressed collective “regret” over his choice of words. However you look at it, the network caved. With ABC having folded under pressure, expect the president-elect to be emboldened.

Trump has also filed a $10bn action against CBS for purportedly doctoring its 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris. Pending in a federal court in Texas, that lawsuit too is predicated upon alleged violation of a state consumer fraud law. Earlier this month, CBS moved to dismiss the case.

For Trump and his allies, however, overturning New York Times v Sullivan, the US supreme court’s unanimous 1964 landmark ruling on press freedoms, is the ultimate prize. In their view, public figures facing off against the press should be aided by a lower burden of proof. They should no longer be required to demonstrate “actual malice”. The fact that more than half a century has passed since the decision means little.

Justice Clarence Thomas has branded Sullivan and its progeny as “policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law”. Justice Neil Gorsuch more subtly contends that the emergence of cable television, the internet, and the 24/7 news cycle warrant re-examination of the “actual malice” standard.

Game of Shards

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses party organizations and campaign finance.

Mike Allen at Axios:

The future of news and information is upon us. Welcome to the shards of glass election — and news era.

Why it matters: How and where Americans get informed has broken into scores of pieces — from young men on Joe Rogan's podcasts, to suburban women following Instagram influencers.

Both campaigns have targeted small, often little-appreciated shards to reach hyper-specific pockets of potential voters. The campaigns are doing this with unorthodox, sometimes lengthy media appearances and precision ad targeting.Former President Trump reached way more potential male voters with his three-hour Rogan conversation (33 million views over the weekend) than he could have with a dozen or more appearances on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC combined. All three cable news networks skew very old in viewership, with median ages ranging from 67 to 70.

Vice President Harris reached more young women on Alex Cooper's "Call Her Daddy" podcast, a show about sex and relationships, than she could on CBS' "60 Minutes" and ABC's "The View" combined. Both shows skew very old, too.

Memes, prediction markets and long-form podcast interviews shape the conversation as surely as any front page.

Hello Darkness My Old Friend

 Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. 

 Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  

Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.   

He is planning an authoritarian agenda and would take care to eliminate any internal dissent.

 Annie Gowen at WP:

For the third time in a week, former president Donald Trump repeated his charge that Democrats allied against him are “the enemy from within” in an interview with Fox News during which he called the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol “a beautiful thing.”

Trump, in an interview with “Media Buzz” that aired Sunday, referred to Reps. Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, both California Democrats, as “bad people” who threaten democracy. Interviewer Howard Kurtz asked, “Are you prepared to say now that you will not use law enforcement to punish or prosecute your political opponents?”

Trump responded, “Excuse me, that’s what they’re using on me.”

In a separate Fox News interview that aired on Oct. 13, Trump said that his foes could be “very easily handled” by the National Guard, or, “if really necessary, by the military.” He repeated the line about the “enemy from within” days later during a Fox News town hall event.

“You call Americans who don’t support you ‘the enemy within.’ That’s a pretty ominous phrase to use about other Americans,” Kurtz noted.

“I think that’s accurate,” Trump replied, before referencing Pelosi and Schiff, two outspoken Trump critics.

“These are bad people. We have a lot of bad people,” the former president said. “But when you look at shifty Schiff and some of the others, yeah, they are to me the enemy from within. I think Nancy Pelosi is an enemy from within.”

 Michael M. Grynbaum and David McCabe at NYT:

“CBS should lose its license,” Mr. Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform last week. “60 Minutes should be immediately taken off the air.” He has repeated his demands in speeches and in interviews, echoing his earlier calls for ABC’s license to be “terminated” because of his displeasure with how the network handled his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump ratcheted up his threats against CBS. “We’re going to subpoena their records,” he told Fox News in an interview, repeating his claim that the network’s edit of Ms. Harris’s recent appearance on “60 Minutes” was misleading. Asked if revoking a broadcast license was a “drastic punishment,” Mr. Trump did not answer directly, instead lobbing a string of insults at Ms. Harris, whom he called “incompetent” and “a Marxist."

PRRI:

Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to support their candidate assuming office by force after an election loss.

• Nearly one in five Republicans (19%), including 23% of Republicans who hold a favorable view of Trump, say that if Trump loses the election, he should declare the results invalid and do whatever it takes to assume office.
• About one in ten Democrats (12%), including 12% of Democrats who hold a favorable view of Harris, say that if Harris loses the election, she should declare the results invalid and do whatever it takes to assume office.
• Nearly half of Americans (49%) agree that there is a real danger that Trump will use the presidency to become a dictator, compared to only 28% who hold similar concerns about Harris.

Although most Americans reject political violence, Republicans remain more likely than Democrats to support potential political violence.

• Nearly half of Americans (45%) believe Republicans are determined to stay in power, even if that means resorting to political violence, compared with about one-third (35%) who think the same about Democrats.
• Nearly three in ten Republicans (29%) believe that true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country, compared with 16% of independents and 8% of Democrats.
• Republicans are twice as likely (27%) as independents (14%) or Democrats (12%) to agree that armed everyday citizens should be poll watchers, even if this makes some voters uncomfortable.
• While most Americans (80%) disagree that “if the 2024 presidential election is compromised by voter fraud, everyday Americans will need to ensure the rightful leader takes office, even if it requires taking violent actions,” Republicans (22%) are more likely to agree than independents (14%) or Democrats (12%).

Views on whether Trump broke the law trying to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, whether the election was stolen from Trump, and whether those convicted in the Jan. 6 insurrection are being held hostage by the government are strongly shaped by partisanship and news viewership.

• A slim majority of Americans (53%) agree it is likely that Trump broke the law to try to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, though just 17% of Republicans agree. Americans who most trust Fox News (12%) or far-right news outlets (4%) are the least likely to believe Trump broke the law to stay in power after losing the election.
• More than six in ten Republicans (62%), compared with 27% of independents and 4% of Democrats, believe the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Americans who most trust far-right TV news outlets (84%) and Fox News (64%) are the most likely to agree with the statement that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
• Only one in four Americans (25%) agree with Trump’s frequent claim that “the people convicted for their role in the violent Jan. 6 attacks on the U.S. Capitol are really patriots who are being held hostage by the government.” Republicans (46%) are more than twice as likely as independents (20%) and about seven times as likely as Democrats (7%) to agree with this statement.

 

Harris Crushes Trump in Debate

Our most recent book is Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Less than 48 hours after Biden's withdrawal, Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party's presumptive nominee.

So far, the debates have severely disadvantaged Trump.  The first one knocked Biden out of the race, leading to the nomination of a far stronger opponent.  The second one showcased her strengths and his weaknesses.  He can still win, but it is not the race that he wanted.

 Ariel Edwards-Levy, at CNN:

Registered voters who watched Tuesday’s presidential debate broadly agree that Kamala Harris outperformed Donald Trump, according to a CNN poll of debate watchers conducted by SSRS. The vice president also outpaced both debate watchers’ expectations for her and Joe Biden’s onstage performance against the former president earlier this year, the poll found.

Debate watchers said, 63% to 37%, that Harris turned in a better performance onstage in Philadelphia. Prior to the debate, the same voters were evenly split on which candidate would perform more strongly, with 50% saying Harris would do so and 50% that Trump would. And afterward, 96% of Harris supporters who tuned in said that their chosen candidate had done a better job, while a smaller 69% majority of Trump’s supporters credited him with having a better night.

Voters who watched the debate also left with improved views of Harris compared with their impressions pre-debate, while few changed their opinions of Trump overall. Their views of each candidate’s strengths on the issues continued to reflect the dynamics seen in national polling, with Trump holding an advantage on the economy, immigration and being commander in chief, and Harris more trusted on abortion and protecting democracy.

Lisa Lerer and Reid J. Epstein at NYT:

She turned to him with an arched brow. A quiet sigh. A hand on her chin. A laugh. A pitiful glance. A dismissive shake of her head.

From the opening moments of her first debate against Donald J. Trump, Kamala Harris craftily exploited her opponent’s biggest weakness.

Not his record. Not his divisive policies. Not his history of inflammatory statements.

Instead, she took aim at a far more primal part of him: his ego.

At his rallies, on his sycophantic social media network and surrounded by flatterers at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump is unquestioned, unchallenged and never ever mocked.

That changed over the course of 90 minutes in Philadelphia on Tuesday, when the woman who had never before met him succeeded, bit by bit, in puncturing his comfortable cocoon and triggering his annoyance and anger.

Ms. Harris questioned the size and loyalty of the crowds at his rallies. She said world leaders call him a “disgrace.” And she claimed his fortune was built by his father, recasting a business mogul who proudly boasts of being a self-made man as just another nepotism baby.

Then she stood by and watched, as Mr. Trump did himself a whole lot of damage.

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