Trump’s efforts to censor the press

The White House fails the test of its own censorship executive order

Two weeks ago, Donald Trump issued an executive order touting his efforts to end censorship by the federal government. But in reality, what we’ve seen so far from the Trump administration shows us that Trump is deploying the very same censorship tactics he has used in the past.

We must be prepared for him to continue escalating those tactics in the weeks and months to come.

What did Trump’s censorship order say?

The order — titled “Restoring Freedom of Speech and Ending Federal Censorship” — rightly declares that “[g]overnment censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society.” And it says the policy of the United States is to ensure that the government does not “unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”

As Alex Abdo of the Knight First Amendment Institute writes, the order “would be unobjectionable” if limited to this policy statement: “[T]here’s certainly nothing wrong with reminding federal officials of their duty to comply with the First Amendment.”

So how does the order say we should measure whether government officials are living up to that standard? Well, the order says some stuff about what does not live up to that standard. That includes:

• “exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties,”

• “advanc[ing] the Government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate,”

• using “taxpayer resources . . . to engage in or facilitate any conduct that would unconstitutionally abridge” free speech, and

• having members of the federal government abridge the right to freedom of speech.

The order conspicuously takes aim at only the Biden administration, but it raises at least two obvious questions. First, how well has Trump himself lived up to the standard laid out in his order — particularly during his first term in office? And second, how well do we expect him to live up to this standard during his second term?

And to answer those questions in brief: (1) very badly, and (2) likely much, much worse.

Trump’s efforts to censor and suppress free speech during his first term

Trump has a long history of attempting to censor, suppress, and chill protected speech. Just look at his assault on the First Amendment protections of members of the press in his first term.

Many of these abuses are catalogued in a lawsuit – PEN America v. Trump – which was filed by Protect Democracy and others. As alleged in that case, one censorship tactic Trump employed was restricting — or threatening to restrict — press access to the White House based on whether Trump disapproved of the coverage his administration received.

Read more: PEN America v. Trump

For example, Trump revoked press credentials from then-CNN reporter Jim Acosta after he asked questions concerning a migrant caravan moving towards the US-Mexico border. White House officials also barred CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins from a Rose Garden press event because Collins had earlier asked Trump questions that administration officials deemed “inappropriate.” Trump also threatened to revoke the press credentials of April Ryan (then at the American Urban Radio Networks), whom he claimed failed to show him “respect.” And on social media, Trump threatened to revoke the credentials of reporters whose coverage he found negative.

But Trump’s assault on the press during his first term extended far beyond restricting access for journalists.

For example, Trump revoked the security clearance of former CIA Director John Brennan, an outspoken critic of the Trump administration who repeatedly challenged Trump’s actions on television and through social media. In addition, he threatened to raise the postal shipping rates for Amazon — an effort that White House insiders described “as a thinly veiled attempt to retaliate against The Washington Post,” which he perceived as overly critical and which, along with Amazon, is owned by Jeff Bezos (though it is worth noting that Bezos and the Post have taken a much more conciliatory approach to Trump in his second term).

Trump also threatened the broadcast licenses of television stations owned and operated by NBC and other outlets whose coverage he disapproved of. And a federal investigation found that the Trump-appointed chief executive of the U.S. Agency for Global Media — which oversees networks that are charged with providing straight news for societies where independent news coverage is repressed or financially unfeasible — repeatedly abused the powers of his office, including by interfering with the journalistic independence of the newsrooms under his agency and hiring a law firm to investigate employees he saw as opposed to Trump.

These examples are far from exhaustive. But even just from this sampling, it’s clear that, during his first term, Trump came nowhere close to living up to the free speech commitments spelled out in this executive order.

What can we expect from Trump’s second term?

Unfortunately, Trump and his allies have signaled that he will be far worse at living up to his own standard of freedom of speech over the next four years.

For one, potential administration officials have announced that they may criminally prosecute individuals whose coverage is deemed critical of Trump. For example, Kash Patel — Trump’s nominee for FBI director — recently stated that, “We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media . . . . We’re going to come after [them] whether it’s criminally or civilly[.]”

In addition, his administration has already targeted media outlets whom Trump has criticized in the past by restricting their press access, raising the specter that he will once again retaliate against or otherwise threaten news coverage that he disapproves of. For example, late last week, the Trump administration notified four major news outlets — the New York Times, NBC News, NPR, and Politico — that they would have to vacate their office space at the Pentagon as part of a newly instituted “annual media rotation program.” They will be replaced with The New York Post, One America News, Breitbart News, and Huffpost.

As a New York Times statement noted in response, “Steps designed to impede access are clearly not in the public interest.” And this is a move that the Pentagon Press Association emphasized is “unprecedented,” especially given the decision “to single out highly professional media who have covered the Pentagon for decades, under both Republican and Democratic administrations.”

Trump also seems poised to target broadcast stations again. Indeed, he has continued calling for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to revoke broadcast licenses in the face of unfavorable coverage. Shortly after Trump designated Brendan Carr as the new FCC chair, the FCC reinstated complaints against ABC, CBS, and NBC related to their 2024 election coverage — complaints that the previous chair of the FCC rejected and described as “seek[ing] to curtail freedom of the press and undermine the First Amendment.”

Based on one of those complaints, Carr pressured CBS into handing over a full recording and transcript of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, having signaled that the complaint could come up in the FCC’s review of a multibillion dollar merger between CBS’s parent company and another company. And Carr ordered an investigation of NPR and PBS, with an eye towards unraveling federal funding for all public broadcasting, including local public television and radio outlets. That’s in line with a broader goal Trump’s allies have made clear will be a priority during his second term, including potentially by unconstitutionally withholding funds that have already been appropriated by Congress.

Relying on regulatory agencies to retaliate against critical voices is a common tool employed by authoritarians around the globe, and Trump has signaled that he could use other agencies beyond the FCC to censor journalists or media outlets whom he disapproves of. That includes tax audits by the Internal Revenue Service, investigations by the Federal Election Commission, and enforcement actions by other agencies.

And beyond relying on the tools of the regulatory state, Trump may also continue to pursue aggressive defamation or consumer fraud lawsuits that, even if meritless, further demonize the press, are costly to defend, and chill important reporting. Facing these suits, some news organizations and social media companies have already begun to further the cycle of anticipatory obedience by entering into settlement agreements rather than relying on constitutional protections to defend themselves. And although journalists and other experts continue to raise alarms about succumbing to this censorship tactic, some media companies have continued to pursue these settlement talks when faced with these suits — however frivolous — from Trump.

Such suits — or even the threats of such suits — could be especially chilling to local and freelance journalists and nonprofit journalistic outlets. Coupled with efforts in state legislatures to lower the intentionally high standard that public figures must meet to successfully sue in these types of cases, these settlements may well encourage Trump to intensify his assault on the media and ultimately weaken the democratic freedoms on which media outlets depend.

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As with his first term, these are just some examples of the tactics Trump has signaled he could employ during his second term to attack the press and censor his critics. And from what we’ve already seen, Trump has assaulted the First Amendment protections he purports to hold so dearly in this executive order.

We all need to be prepared to fight back to protect our First Amendment protections from these and other censorship tactics. If not, we will all feel the consequences of losing the right to free speech — not to mention the robust media ecosystem and public debate that it affords.