Donald Trump, as a private citizen and as president, has a habit of trying to bend traditional and social media outlets to his will. Soon after he left office in 2021, he sued the social media giants Meta and Twitter (later renamed X) for kicking him off those platforms after Jan. 6. In April and October 2024 respectively, he sued ABC News for alleged defamation and CBS for what he called an improperly edited interview of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democrats' nominee for president.
During this second term, the Federal Communications Commission chair has launched investigations against NPR and PBS over on-air recognition of financial sponsors, against CBS for alleged "news distortion," against ABC regarding its handling of the Harris-Trump debate and against Comcast, which owns MSNBC's parent company, over its diversity, equity and inclusion program.
An executive order Trump signed this month seeks to further bring the power of the federal government down on NPR and PBS, whose content Trump argues isn't "fair, accurate, or unbiased." Does a president have the power to hobble media outlets based on his disagreement with their content? No, not according to the Constitution. An estimated 43 million people per week receive at least some of their news from NPR alone, and with a lawsuit of its own, the nonprofit media organization is fighting back against Trump's efforts to silence it.
This is a preview of Jessica Levinson's latest column. Read the full column here.
