As you’re probably aware, Trump on Wednesday berated ABC’s Chief White House correspondent, Mary Bruce, for asking a question in a way he didn’t like during his meeting with the Saudi crown prince.
“It’s not the question that I mind; it’s your attitude,” Trump told Bruce. “I think you are a terrible reporter. It’s the way you ask these questions.”
He added, “You’re a terrible person and a terrible reporter.”
Trump is entitled to his opinions, even if they put his thin skin on full display. Reporters should be able to tolerate insults from the malignant narcissist now occupying the Oval Office. In fact, journalists should treat them as badges of honor.
The truly troubling aspect of Trump’s interaction with Bruce — which hasn’t got nearly as much coverage as did his insults of her — is the threat he then made against ABC, presumably for allowing Bruce to cover the White House.
He referred to ABC as a “crappy company” and said the network’s broadcasting license “should be taken away” — adding that his top broadcast regulator, Brendan Carr, whose Federal Communications Commission grants licenses to local stations, “should look at that.”
Might this threat cause ABC to ask Bruce to tone down her inquiries? Or even cause ABC to replace her with someone more to Trump’s liking?
This isn’t an idle concern. In recent months Trump has on several occasions threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcasting license after ABC journalists asked him questions he didn’t like. Last year he sued ABC News for defamation. It was a bogus suit, which courts would have thrown out had it been litigated. Instead, the network paid out $16 million to settle it.
Trump has gone after CBS — suing the company, and then, through his lapdog Carr, blocking the sale of its parent corporation, Paramount, to the Ellison family until it settled the lawsuit. Presumably, CBS’s termination of Stephen Colbert’s contract was also viewed by Paramount as necessary to get Carr’s approval — Colbert has been one of the sharpest and most popular Trump critics on late night television.
Trump’s threats against media companies that employ hard-hitting journalists or Trump critics are never harmless.
Last weekend, in a post on Truth Social, Trump went on the attack against late-night host Seth Meyers, accusing him of “suffering from an incurable case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).”
Again, a personal insult from Trump isn’t a concern. Meyers took it as a compliment, as he should.
But Trump then pivoted to threaten NBC, which employs Meyers — urging NBC to “fire him, IMMEDIATELY!”
I doubt NBC will fire Meyers. But I can’t be sure that NBC’s parent corporation, Comcast, will be as tolerant of Meyers — given that Comcast is now preparing a bid for Warner Bros Discovery (as are Netflix and Paramount).
The winning bid must be approved by Carr. Comcast executives likely took note of the fact that Carr reposted Trump’s message telling NBC to fire Meyers.
The lesson here: Pay no attention to Trump’s personal insults. By now they’re expected features of Trump’s childish responses to criticism.
But pay a great deal of attention to his threats to the profits of media corporations. That’s where the rest of us are most vulnerable to Trump’s ongoing efforts to suppress criticism of him and his regime.
We cannot know how much Trump has already chilled unfavorable reporting or criticism because media corporations fear what he could do to their bottom lines. (Jeff Bezos’s tawdry effort to censor the editorial board of the Washington Post may be just the tip of a shameful iceberg.)
When Trump is gone, add this to the lengthening list of necessary reforms: eliminate a president’s authority to appoint the chair of the Federal Communications Commission.
- Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
- Robert Reich's new memoir, Coming Up Short, can be found wherever you buy books. You can also support local bookstores nationally by ordering the book at bookshop.org.
