An ex-Trump official is sounding the alarm after the White House published – and quickly removed – a video of Santa Claus holding a “Naughty List” featuring the names of journalists and news outlets.
On Thursday, the White House website published a video of what it described as “media offenders on the naughty list,” though the video appears to have been removed as of Friday. Re-uploaded on social media, the video depicts Santa Claus laughing while unveiling a “Naughty List” of journalists and media outlets, and is set to Michael Bublé’s rendition of “Santa Claus Is Coming To Town.”
Miles Taylor, a former Homeland Security senior official under both the Trump and Bush administrations, likened the video to the early days of Nazi Germany and its attack on journalists deemed to be enemies of the state, and warned that when it came to Trump’s attack on the press, “more will follow.”
“The [Nazi] regime published lists of ‘un-German’ writers and journalists, accusing them of poisoning the nation’s soul. News outlets were threatened with closure and then later shut down,” Taylor wrote Friday on his Substack, Defiance News.
“Here we are. The White House is on a similar path. That’s not exaggeration or heedless historical comparison, meant to accuse Trump of being a ‘Nazi’ to score political points. The man who is our current president – and the people around him – have a stated and demonstrated desire to subvert the free press in this country.”
Trump has long railed against the media as being the “enemy of the people,” going back to his 2016 presidential bid. Only recently, however, has Trump escalated his attack on the press by suing media outlets, threatening to revoke broadcasting licenses, and stripping reporters of their White House credentials. And now, he’s directly named and shamed journalists, the first step, Taylor argued, would only escalate if not opposed.
“A president who publishes a blacklist of reporters is not making a silly Christmas ‘joke,’” Taylor wrote. “He’s testing how far he can go, preparing to crack down, and seeing how many people will smile while he does it.”
