Trump Violates Constitution By Banning News Sites From The White House

 

Donald Trump, while campaigning for his second term, made the statement that you cannot have a free country without free speech. It's one of the few things he's said that is true. Our Founding Fathers knew this - it's why they included free speech and a free press in the First Amendment to the Constitution.

The problem is that Donald Trump doesn't know (or care) about real free speech. To him, free speech only includes speech that agrees with him. That is not free speech. Every dictator in the world agrees with and allows speech that agrees with them. Real free speech must also includes speech you disagree with and maybe even are offended by.

Trump made it clear he doesn't really believe in free speech a few days ago when he banned three news organizations (MS NOW, Politico, and CNN) from the White House. They were banned for printing/telling the truth about his administration. He has said he may include other news organizations in the ban (including The New York Times and The Washington Post). 

Trump's action is clearly unconstitutional, and no doubt will be overturned by the courts. But in the meantime, he is suppressing free speech and a free press - and that hurts our democracy.

Here is some of what former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance had to say about Trump's action:

By now you’ve likely seen the news: Donald Trump banned, via Truth Social post, MS NOW, CNN, and Politico from the White House. Journalists from those outlets were denied access to the White House when they came to work today, Saturday.

Almost certainly, the first thought that crosses your mind is, “That has to violate the First Amendment.” You would not be wrong.

What Trump has done is a fundamental violation of the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process. George Lehner, the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) counsel for 18 years, assessed the same basic issue in November 2018, after the Trump administration suspended CNN Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta’s credentials when he pressed Trump for answers about disappearing “caravans” of migrants after the midterm elections. In its amicus brief, the WHCA argued that “the First Amendment requires a compelling government interest—not whim, prejudice, or dislike—for the President to strip a journalist of his or her ability to report from the White House.” It took a judge less than two weeks to restore Acosta’s credentials.

Tonight, Jim Acosta told me, “I think Trump is almost certain to lose this case. During his comments Friday he didn’t even cite a specific reason for banning these outlets. I can’t imagine a scenario in which a judge allows this irrational, desperate ban to become permanent.”

Trump even lost Jonathan Turley, the conservative lawyer who testified on his behalf during his first impeachment and went on Fox News to criticize both the second impeachment and criminal charges that were brought against Trump. On Friday, Turley tweeted that a ban on CNN, Politico, and MS NOW by Trump “would be an assault on long-honored principles of a free press.” He continued, “Barring disfavored media from the White House is a terrible precedent and practice. Such a move would raise serious constitutional questions.”

Authoritarian governments use press access to keep reporters in line and prevent negative coverage. Denying access threatens a reporter’s ability to do their job and, ultimately, their livelihood. Trump’s “ban” is a tactic to silence voices that report the news as it happens. No American president should ban “disfavored outlets” from the access that is essential to covering our government. Even a more modest restriction, the 2009 effort by the Obama White House to block Fox News from a round of interviews with the executive-pay czar Kenneth R. Feinberg, provoked outrage from news outlets, as it should have. The White House said Fox News was blurring the distinction between news and “anti-Obama advocacy.” CNN, ABC, CBS, and NBC, who were also part of the pool doing the interview, refused to go forward unless Fox was included. The White House backed down.

So far, the Associated Press, The New York Times, and The Washington Post have joined ranks with MS NOW, CNN, and Politico. The WHCA has taken an uncompromising stance in support of the banned news organizations. Will more outlets support the First Amendment in this extraordinarily dangerous moment for democracy? I suspect that legitimate news organizations will; in fact, this may well be a moment that separates professional journalists from sycophantic so-called members of the press. . . .

The First Amendment includes rights beyond a free press, including free speech, the right to assemble, and the right to petition the government. The other rights are facilitated by, if not dependent upon, having a free press, as is much of the conduct of our society. Knowledge is power. And perhaps that’s what Trump hates the most. He hates being criticized; he hates that having his plans exposed publicly has drummed up opposition and kept him from doing what he wants to do whenever he wants to do it. Without a free press, Richard Nixon would have probably gotten away with Watergate. If a president wants to be an authoritarian, he’s got to do away with them. . . .

So be outraged. Be very, very outraged. Because this is nothing short of outrageous. But don’t stop there. Keep your eyes on the ball. Keep your eyes on everything Trump is trying to prevent you from thinking about and seeing. And get ready to vote in the midterm elections like your future depends on it. Because as we all know, it does.

Republicans Seen As The Bigger Threat To Free Speech

The chart above is from the Yahoo / YouGov Poll -- done between September 25th and 29th of a nationwide sample of 1,676 adults, with a 3 point margin of error.

Voters Are Unhappy With Trump Over Misuse Of DOJ And Free Speech

 

The charts above reflect the results of the Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between September 26th and 29th of a nationwide sample of 1,518 registered voters, with a margin of error of 3.1 points.

Trump Wants To Control Who Can Speak At The U.N.

The words above, from Colombian President Gustavo Petri, will probably shock many Americans. But they shouldn't. He has a point.

Donald Trump appeared at the United Nations last week, and among other things, he remarked about the organizations inability to solve world problems. I believe the UN does a lot of good in the world, but it does have some problems.

I wonder if Trump realizes that he is one of those problems. Last week, the UN debated the possibility of a two-state solution to solve the problems between Israelis and Palestinians. But not all parties were able to appear and speak at the UN. Trump refused to allow representatives of Hamas to enter the U.S. and appear at the UN. Whatever one might think of Hamas (and they deserve the criticism they receive), shouldn't all sides be heard if a solution is to be found?

Then, after President Petro joined a demonstration supporting Palestinians, Trump revoked his visa and forced him to leave this country. Petro did not commit or support violence. He just peacefully demonstrated with others. Shouldn't that be his right (since our Constitution affords the same rights to everyone in this country - even visitors)?

We are currently having a problem with the Trump administration trying to suppress free speech in the United States. But we need to also support free speech at the United Nations. How can solutions be found when only some are allowed to speak? If the United Nations is to work, everyone must be included.

But Donald Trump thinks he should have the right to restrict who can enter this country to speak at the United Nations. He should not have that right! 

As long as Trump tries to control who can appear before the UN, President Petro has a point. Maybe the UN should be moved to a country that will respect everyone's ability to address it - even those with unpopular views.

Voters Are Growing More Pessimistic About Protection Of Free Speech

The chart above reflects the results of the Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between September 18th and 21st of a nationwide sample of 1,276 registered voters, with a 3.3 point margin of error.
 

Why Is Kimmel Back? - A Massive Public Backlash!

Robert Reich tells us the real reason Jimmy Kimmel is back on the air:

ABC says “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” will return to the airwaves next Tuesday — less than a week after Trump henchman Brendan Carr, chair of the Federal Communications Commission, said on a podcast that Kimmel’s remarks were part of a “concerted effort to lie to the American people” and that the FCC would have “do this the easy way or the hard way” — suggesting that either ABC and its parent company, Walt Disney, remove Kimmel, or the FCC would revoke ABC’s broadcast license. 

Why Walt Disney Company’s turnaround? It limply explained today:

“Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive.”

But now, apparently, all is well. 

“We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.”

How lovely. How reasonable. How, well, kumbaya. All it took were some “thoughtful conversations with Jimmy” and everything returned to normalcy.

 

Don’t believe it. In the days since ABC’s decision, the blowback against Disney has been hurricane level.

At least five Hollywood unions, collectively representing more than 400,000 workers, have publicly condemned the company.

The screenwriters’ union decried what they called “corporate cowardice” and organized a protest last week outside the main gate at Disney headquarters in Burbank, California.

Celebrities Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep called out “government threats to our freedom of speech.” 

Kimmel was supported by his late-night peers, including Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Seth Meyers, and John Oliver, as well as former late-night hosts David Letterman, Conan O’Brien, and Jay Leno — all of whom blasted the decision. 

Damon Lindelof, a creator of ABC’s “Lost,” said that if Kimmel’s program did not return from suspension, he couldn’t “in good conscience work for the company that imposed it.” 

Michael Eisner, a former Disney CEO, issued a rare rebuke.

Even right-wing Republican Senator Ted Cruz expressed concern, likening Carr’s comments to a mob boss and calling his threats to potentially retaliate against media companies “dangerous as hell.”

“We should not be in this business,” Cruz said. “We should denounce it.”

By this morning, Carr himself was busy minimizing his role — denying that he had threatened to pull the licenses of ABC stations (it “did not happen in any way, shape or form”) — and claiming Disney had made a “business decision” in response to feedback from viewers and affiliates. 

“Jimmy Kimmel is in the situation that he’s in because of his ratings, not because of anything that’s happened at the federal government level,” Carr said.

But the most intense pressure came from us — from Disney viewers and customers — who immediately began to cancel subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu and threaten a broader consumer boycott. 

Some stars such as Tatiana Maslany (star of Marvel’s Disney+ series “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law”) and Rosie O’Donnell urged people to cancel their subscriptions. 

But the consumer boycott seems to have begun almost immediately. 

According to Strength in Numbers, searches for “cancel Disney+” were higher than boycott movements from when Disney went “woke” in 2020-2022. According to search interest, the Disney boycott quickly became four times as large as any boycott over the last five years. 

Shortly after Kimmel’s suspension was announced, Disney stock dipped about 3.5 percent and continued to trade lower in subsequent days. 

That loss in market value has amounted to about $4 billion. 

Investors knew consumers were upset. There’s never one single reason for the ups and downs in the value of a particular firm’s shares of stock, but the correlation here has been almost exact. 

The bottom line: We have extraordinary power. We’re the vast majority. Like every other big corporation, Disney relies on us.

Even if we can’t count on our elected politicians to protect our First Amendment rights, we can rely on ourselves. When our outrage translates into withholding our consumer dollars, a big corporation like Disney is forced to listen — and respond. 

Remember this.

Trump's War On Free Speech Likely Killed His Hope For A Nobel Prize

 

From The Borowitz Report

Trump's War On Comedy Could Be His Undoing

 This post is by former Labor Secretary Robert Reich:

The one thing Trump can’t take is a joke, especially one at his expense. 

Yesterday — one day after ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s show off the air “indefinitely,” after pressure from the chairman of Trump’s Federal Communications Commission — Trump said federal regulators should revoke broadcast licenses over late-night hosts who speak negatively about him.

 

“They’re giving me all this bad press, and they’re getting a license,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One. “I would think maybe their license should be taken away.”

It was bad enough in the early 1950s when the U.S. government criminalized certain speech during Joe McCarthy’s communist witch hunts. Those witch hunts were directed at alleged members of the Communist Party who supposedly posed a threat to America (although the vast majority of them were loyal Americans).

 

Late-night comedians pose no conceivable threat to America. They make people laugh. 

But they do pose a potential threat to Trump.

 

CBS’s cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s Late Show was announced just days after Colbert slammed CBS’s parent company, Paramount, for giving Trump $16 million to settle Trump’s defamation suit — which Colbert called a "big, fat bribe” to get the FCC to allow Paramount to merge with and be acquired by Skydance Media. 

Colbert was correct, of course.

 

Trump’s response to Colbert’s cancellation? “I absolutely love that Colbert' got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next.”

Kimmel was next, and it’s probably not coincidental that ABC has also been a target of Trump’s defamation ire, finally settling with him for the same amount, $16 million.

 

Trump’s response to Jimmy Kimmel’s cancellation this week? "Great news for America.” Trump then added, “[t]hat leaves Jimmy [Fallon] and Seth [Meyers], two total losers, on Fake News NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it NBC."

What does Trump have against late-night comedians? 

For as long as anyone can remember, they’ve been a source of jokes about those in power. In the wake of Kimmel’s firing, David Letterman, the longtime late-night host, said he’d routinely beat up on president after president over the years, and “not once were we squeezed by anyone from any governmental agency. Everyone sort of understood [it was] in the name of humor.” 

But Trump hates to be the object of humor. Some deep part of his reptilian brain understands that humor can be a more powerful antidote to tyranny than any other form of criticism. 

Laughter doesn’t just entertain, it subverts. Humor undermines tyrannical power that relies on projecting an image of inevitability and invincibility, by making a tyrant appear weak and vulnerable. Check one against Trump.

Laughter also undermines fear, which is used by tyrants to maintain control. When the public laughs at a leader, his oppressive control weakens. Check two against Trump. 

Finally, humor can remind people they’re not alone. When a joke is widely shared, it reveals that opposition is widespread, which can encourage and validate resistance.

 

Check three against Trump. 

At some level, Trump understands this. 

It’s also true that Trump’s fragile ego can’t stand to be ridiculed. 

Anyone who watched the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner got a glimpse of how much Trump hates being mocked. President Obama and Seth Meyers spent nearly five minutes roasting Trump over his promotion of the "birther" conspiracy theory. The audience roared. But Trump appeared to seethe. Some of his biographers have speculated that this event was a key factor in his decision to run for president in 2016.

 

Finally, Trump seems constitutionally unable to recognize humor. 

Unlike John F. Kennedy, whose wit encouraged us to laugh with him, or Ronald Reagan, whose funny asides endeared him to many who disagreed with his politics, Trump is humorless. 

He doesn’t laugh. He rarely smiles. He occasionally tells a humorous story at the expense of someone or some group he dislikes but he is incapable of self-deprecating humor. 

We don’t laugh with Trump. We only laugh at him.

 

In 2018, during his speech at the United Nations, his claim that “in less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country” drew loud guffaws from world leaders. (Taken aback, Trump responded, “Didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s okay.”)

For all these reasons, Trump’s war on late-night comedians may be his undoing.

 

It’s one thing to declare war on crime or undocumented workers or even liberals. But everyone loves to laugh. 

As Letterman said, “the institution of the President of the United States ought to be bigger than a guy doing a talk show, you know You can’t go around firing somebody because you’re fearful [that they’ll get a laugh]. That’s just not how this works.”

Trump Strikes Another Blow Against Free Speech In The U.S.

The statement above was made by Jimmy Kimmel on his ABC late night show. It can be debated whether it was funny or not. But Donald Trump and the MAGA right displayed just how thin-skinned they are when they heard it.

They were outraged. How dare a comedian say anything about their white Christian nationalist and patriarchy-loving martyr! While they have been whining about free speech for years now, they made it clear that the free speech was only intended for right-wingers. They don't want anyone to have the right to disagree with them (or say anything that offends them).

And the Trump administration acted to curb that speech:

I doubt that FCC Chair Carr could actually pull ABC's license, but the threat itself was a violation of the Constitution's Free Speech clause. The government cannot act to limit speech, no matter how offensive or hateful they think it is.

But that wasn't the only thing. ABC's parent company (Nexstar) has a pending merger with Tegna. And they need approval from Trump's FCC to finalize the merger. Nexstar decided that the merger was more important than defending free speech so they caved (putting Jimmy Kimmel's show on an indefinite suspension) - giving Trump one more victory in censoring the media.

It's a repeat of what happened when CBS said Stephan Colbert's show would end at the end of his contract next year. CBS's parent company also needed government approval for a merger, and rather than defend Colbert's free speech rights, they caved to the Trump administration.

Both of these corporate moves were very damaging to the ideas of free speech and a free press - both of which are necessary for the survival of any democracy.

They also point out a problem with the super-rich buying up media outlets. These people are not concerned with providing the people the truthful news they need. They are only concerned with their bottom line -- making obscene amounts of money.

Donald Trump is always seeking more power. He wants to rule as an authoritarian (like his buddy Putin). The only things that can stop that are free speech and a free press. But he is being successful in, bit-by-bit, muting the press and critical speech. Greedy people and corporations are letting him do it, and Congress is doing nothing.

This makes the 2026 midterm elections more important than ever. Trump has more than three years left in his term, and without a Congress willing to rein him in, he could finally become the tyrant he wants to be.