Table of Contents
It was a radically different moment in history, but Roosevelt's words should cause a sober assessment of our present situation: the United States has not been at greater peril since four hundred thousand Americans died defending it in a global war. Given the vengeful atmospherics of this White House, any institution, or any individual, is at risk. In this administration, gangsterism is an inside job.
It’s distressing to watch universities, law firms, and lawmakers surrender to Trump’s extortion on everything that they did, might have done, or may do in the future to oppose or offend him. But among his many targets, the ones that set off the loudest alarms are the courts and the press.
The courts are under great pressure but have largely held up. He threatens judges with impeachment, and seems to encourage his MAGA-verse thugs to rid him of these troublesome jurists. Yet the Federal bench still doesn’t hesitate to rule against him as he routinely oversteps his authority. That's courageous.
But sadly, some of our most elite news organizations have capitulated to Trump’s coercion. His principal weapon: libel. It’s a steep climb for a public figure to win a libel case, who must show that a defendant published or broadcast a story with actual malice or with reckless disregard for the truth. Mostly politicians just ignore defamation because they almost always lose (see New York Times v. Sullivan). It’s just not worth the effort or expense.
But Trump embraces libel as a tool of intimidation. He’s happy to collect a few million dollars, but the real payoff is what the courts have called a “chilling effect,” the reluctance of news outlets to publish controversial content out of fear of reprisal.
Thus we get to the case of ABC, who recently settled a defamation case with Trump for $15 million. Trump’s complaint was that on several occasions journalist George Stephanopoulos described a New York jury’s verdict in the E. Jean Carroll case as “rape,” when in fact it was “sexual abuse.” It is possible, but unlikely, that Trump could win the case, but only if he could overcome the high bar of malice or disregard for the truth. Yet ABC decided to settle, rather than inflame Trump’s wrath. That was not courageous.
Trump similarly sued the Des Moines Register for the impertinence of publishing a story, based on its own well-regarded polling, that he was running behind Harris in Iowa. Although there is no question of the story’s veracity, he sues anyway. Why? To intimidate the Register and its owner, Gannett. The Register will win the case, and the administration surely knows this. Yet it persists so that others will pay attention and adjust their coverage accordingly.
Then there is Jeff Bezos, who caved twice, first by telling the Washington Post editorial board to not make an endorsement in the 2024 election, and more recently by backing down on a plan to publish the added cost of Amazon products attributable to Trump’s tariffs. That would have been useful information, except for the man who caused the price hikes. For Bezos, you just need to follow the money. He's a far cry from the Post’s former and legendary owner, Katherine Graham, who twice bet the company on principle when she first fought the Nixon Administration to publish the Pentagon Papers, and then when she continued to green-light the Post’s fraught Watergate coverage. Bezos, who unlike Graham has unlimited funds to fight, chooses not to. Jeff Bezos is no Kate Graham.
The same for a still unresolved three-way conflict between Trump, Paramount, and its CBS News division. The administration is applying pressure on Paramount over a pending $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. Unhappy with negative coverage from CBS’ 60 Minutes, the administration has hinted it will block the merger unless 60 Minutes learns to behave. So Paramount is now leaning on its own news division to back off on Trump, leading to resignations at 60 Minutes management, and then an extraordinary commentary and defense of 60 Minutes by host Scott Pelli. More to follow, but it’s always a capitulation when the business starts telling the news division what to report.
These attacks are simultaneously petty and treacherous, so blatant as they are in assaulting the press. In a small victory, the Associated Press went to court and won after the administration barred it from the White House. Its offense? It refused to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. In a world where an American government will punish any institution who commits even the most benign offense, this is how we measure press freedom today.
It’s now more than eighty years since FDR’s Pearl Harbor radio address, in which he promised, “This kind of treachery shall never endanger us again.” Except it is, perpetrated by the very people who take an oath to faithfully execute the laws and to protect and defend the Constitution. So it falls on us to save America from these gangsters, if only to honor the four hundred thousand who eighty years ago gave their lives for it.
