During Donald Trump’s interview with conservative podcast host Ben Shapiro this week, the two covered a fair amount of ground, though one exchange stood out. The host asked the former president, “How do you fight a legacy media that is once again rigging the informational environment of the election?”
Before we get to the former president’s answer, let’s go ahead and state for the record that the idea that major independent news organizations are conspiring to “rig the informational environment” is rather odd. But so too was Trump’s response to the question.
“The New York Times is one of the most dishonest of all,” the GOP candidate said, adding: “Wait until you see what I’m going to do with them.”
I won’t pretend to know what he was referring to, or whether he actually has any plans at all. But the morning after the interview, it apparently occurred to Trump that it’d be a good idea to make another veiled threat against a different media outlet. HuffPost reported:
Former President Donald Trump has alleged, without offering any supporting evidence, that Vice President Kamala Harris’ interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” was grossly “sliced and diced” to make her look “more presidential” and coherent when answering questions. In a Truth Social post [published] early Wednesday, the Republican presidential nominee said Harris’ answers were “virtually incoherent” and edited “as many as four times in a single sentence or thought.”
Yes, according to the GOP presidential nominee, “60 Minutes” producers took portions of the Harris interview and then went to extraordinary lengths to rearrange them in order to help make the vice president look better.
To substantiate his outlandish claim, Trump pointed to literally no evidence whatsoever.
But as bizarre as the claim was, he didn’t stop there. On the contrary, Trump went on to write that the “60 Minutes” producers’ actions — which almost certainly only happened in his overactive imagination — were “possibly illegal” and could constitute “a major Campaign Finance Violation.” (I’ll never understand his approach to capitalization.)
Just as notably, the same online missive took note of CBS News’ broadcast license, before concluding that his weird conspiracy theory “must be investigated, starting today!”
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s probably because Trump said something similar last month after losing a presidential debate to Harris. The morning after the debate, the former president said, in reference to ABC News: “They ought to take away their license.”
As we discussed soon after, it has become a go-to move for the GOP nominee. Earlier this year, for example, after Trump won the Iowa caucuses, he expected news organizations to air his celebratory remarks live and in their entirety. When NBC and CNN chose not to do so, the Republican declared, “Frankly, they should have their licenses or whatever they have taken away.”
He made similar comments during his White House tenure, writing via social media in 2017: “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!”
After leaving office, such rhetoric became even more common. Last year, for example, the former president suggested that Comcast — MSNBC’s and NBC News’ parent company — should be investigated for “Country Threatening Treason” because he disapproved of the networks’ coverage of the Trump/Russia scandal. A month later, as my MSNBC colleague Ja’han Jones noted, the Republican also publicly questioned CBS News’ right to access public airwaves after it ran an interview with Biden that Trump didn’t like.
A month after that, Trump wrote a related missive, arguing that he wants the government to “come down hard” on MSNBC (my employer), whose reporting he described as “illegal.” Now, evidently, he’s thinking anew about CBS’ broadcast license, while telling an ally, in reference to The New York Times: “Wait until you see what I’m going to do with them.” Stepping back, it’s worth emphasizing that we’re talking about a White House hopeful who is threatening perceived foes with prison sentences, endorsing a “strongman” leadership style, bragging about his support from dictators, raising the prospect of a temporary American “dictatorship,” and talking about “terminating” parts of the Constitution that stand in the way of his ambitions. Trump is also arguing that his rivals shouldn’t be “allowed” to run against him, targeting immigrants with Hitler-style rhetoric while promising to create militarized mass deportations and detention camps, promising pardons to politically aligned criminals, and insisting that those who criticize judges and Supreme Court justices that he likes “should be put in jail.” And did I mention that he has raised the specter of military tribunals for his perceived domestic political foes? Because he’s done that, too. Trump’s plan to crack down on the free press is a key and radical part of the same authoritarian-style vision. As a recent analysis by The Washington Post summarized, “For someone who has so strongly objected in recent weeks to the idea that he’s an authoritarian or a threat to democracy, Donald Trump has a funny way of showing it.” This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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