When it comes to the media and Donald Trump, we all know what the White House bottom line is: The narcissist-in-chief craves coverage—but only if he can control the narrative. It has nothing to do with national security. It has everything to do with presidential vanity.
His ideal media coverage would be Breitbart, Newsmax, Fox, LindellTV and Trump TV. But he “allows” other news outlets if they don’t cross his “hoax” rubicon of negative news. It’s his call. Imagine the outrage had Presidents Barack Obama or Joe Biden banned Fox News because they disapproved of “fair and balanced,” right-wing coverage?
For non-MAGA Americans, the recent (temporary) ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House was a constitutional affront that treated the first amendment and due process like “enemies of the people.” Viewpoint discrimination is abhorrent and un-American. Period.
While alarming, none of this is shocking in the Trump era. It was foretold in the 1980s when Trump adopted the alias of “John Barron” to contact New York media about gossip favorable to the man who ran the Trump Organization. That’s how pathologically devious he was—and still is.
Trump remains an ongoing threat to the free press because he resents not being in a compliant media orbit like his peers: Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un.
The best way for this free-press assault to end, of course, is for Trump to stop being a bombastic, autocratic embarrassment to this country and what it still stands for. Shy of that implausible scenario, it’s up to the collective media itself to further fortify its constitutional concord and push back with the rallying support of all those who still believe in the sacred tenets of democratic free speech.