President Donald Trump delivered a speech to U.S. troops stationed in Japan not dissimilar to a typical campaign rally, but one comment in particular had caught the attention of a former member of his administration for its “ominous” message.
During his speech, Trump bragged that grocery prices were “way down,” despite there being strong evidence to the contrary, and railed against the mainstream media, using his frequent attack of calling the press “fake news.”
However, Trump followed his criticisms of the mainstream media with an uncharacteristically small amount of praise: “They’re getting better… they’re not there yet,” he said.
It’s this remark, argued Miles Taylor, Trump’s former homeland security chief of staff, that was the “ominous” hint at things to come.
“It was a throwaway line for the cameras, but an obvious signal to his friends and supporters. The president was nodding to his state-sanctioned media takeover,” Taylor wrote in an analysis published Tuesday on his Substack “Treason.”
“Donald Trump is less than a year into his effort to use the powers of the presidency to pressure the free press into becoming a ‘pro-Trump’ press – whether through threats and lawsuits or corporate mergers – and he’s already seeing the fruits of that campaign. To him, it’s just the beginning.”
Many mainstream media outlets have drawn scrutiny over what critics have characterized as their capitulation to the Trump administration. Free Press, a media advocacy organization, conducted an in-depth study on 35 major media conglomerates, and found that the owners of “most” of America’s largest media firms were already “caving to pressure” from the Trump administration as early as July.
Among the largest U.S. media organizations, CBS News, has seen purges of veteran journalists in recent weeks under the leadership of its new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, who’s cozied up to billionaires in her ascent to the news outlet's top leadership role. David Ellison, the CEO of CBS News’ parent company Paramount Skydance, said recently that his goal with Weiss’ hiring was to restore “balance” to CBS News.
That “balance” has manifested in the aforementioned purges of veteran journalists, as well as reporting from its local outlets that critics have labeled “stanning for Trump,” with one such instance seeing a local CBS News affiliate retracting their coverage after being called out.
“Now look at the big picture – the constant threats and ridiculing of the press, the direct political supervision of major networks, and the backroom meddling in media mergers – and even a third grader can draw a line between all the dots,” Taylor wrote.
“Donald Trump is building the scaffolding of information capture. He doesn’t need to send troops into newsrooms to take control of the airwaves," Taylor added. "This is the subtler takeover of institutions that decide what Americans see, hear, and believe… The president isn’t talking about the media getting ‘better.’ He’s talking about getting his way.”