Lone Candle
Champion of Truth
Trump will brutally insult reporters on camera, and then off camera say something like, “we’re still good right?”
Trump tried to get the military options to attack Venezuela in his first term, but his high military officials didn’t follow the order to get him the military options, and Trump seemed to have forgotten that he asked.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUOyGIh8PYA
Trump Berates Reporters, Gets Mystery MRI & Closes Border to (Non-White) Immigrants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4STrDD7leEM
“As Trump sees it, broadcasters have a legal obligation to treat him fairly. And if they fail to do so, he thinks, they should lose the licenses that allow them to transmit programming over “free airwaves from the United States government.” That position reflects Trump’s general antipathy toward freedom of the press, which he seems to view as a privilege subject to government approval rather than a right guaranteed by the Constitution.”
https://reason.com/2025/11/19/a-reporters-unwelcome-questions-provoke-yet-another-trump-threat-to-yank-broadcast-licenses/
Trump threatens to jail Democratic lawmakers for saying that troops should not follow illegal orders, even though that is true, military men and women shouldn’t follow orders that are illegal. Threatening to jail lawmakers for such statements is yet another dent in U.S. Democracy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ0RTOYhqKs
“Asked by a reporter about Khashoggi’s murder during a press conference in the Oval Office, Trump defended the crown prince — who minutes earlier had pledged to increase his past commitment of $600 billion in investments in the U.S. to $1 trillion.
“He’s done a phenomenal job,” Trump said of Mohammed, adding: “Things happen, but he knew nothing about it.”
And, referencing Khashoggi, the president also seemed to offer an explanation for his murder: “a lot of people didn’t like that gentleman,” he said.
…
Moments later, he went further and suggested that ABC should lose its broadcasting license over the reporter’s question.
It was not the first time Trump made excuses for Khashoggi’s murder, something he also did in 2018. And it followed the president praising Mohammed for his record on “human rights” and declaring that he and the Saudi crown prince have “always been on the same side of every issue.””
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/11/18/trump-defends-mbs-saudi-arabia-00656679?utm_campaign=RSS_Syndication&utm_medium=RSS&utm_source=RSS_Feed
“Until Oct. 10, I was the editor of Governing, a magazine and website covering state and local governments. But after facing increasing internal censorship pressures — largely to avoid critical coverage of President Donald Trump — I refused to go along, and I resigned.
…
The notion that the litigious Trump would hit us with a lawsuit was not impossible, but it was unlikely. We certainly weren’t reliant on federal contracts to stay afloat. But after Trump’s second term began, the corporate anxiety about rocking the boat with our coverage became a constant.
That’s one of the saddest parts of Trump’s anti-media drive. After the government has gone after the big guys — Trump has engaged in court fights this year with CBS, ABC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press, not to mention defunding NPR, my former employer — the little guys too often decide they lack the resources to stand up. Capitulation becomes the easier course.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/10/22/alan-greenblatt-quit-governing-censorship-00617039
How the pentagon is treating reporters is more like how authoritarian governments treat reporters. Yes, we’ll talk to you and give you access, but only to select people who will eat our shit.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwj5dAqrp_8
This is how proto-dictators treat the press.
“Dozens of reporters turned in access badges and exited the Pentagon on Wednesday rather than agree to government-imposed restrictions on their work, pushing journalists who cover the American military further from the seat of its power. The nation’s leadership called the new rules “common sense” to help regulate a “very disruptive” press.
News outlets were nearly unanimous in rejecting new rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that would leave journalists vulnerable to expulsion if they sought to report on information — classified or otherwise — that had not been approved by Hegseth for release.
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“What they’re really doing, they want to spoon-feed information to the journalist, and that would be their story. That’s not journalism,” said Jack Keane, a retired U.S. Army general and Fox News analyst, said on Hegseth’s former network.
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Youssef said it made no sense to sign on to rules that said reporters should not solicit military officials for information. “To agree to not solicit information is to agree to not be a journalist,” she said. “Our whole goal is soliciting information.””
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/journalists-turn-access-badges-exit-202714163.html
Trump continues to bully and sue to suppress the press and free speech. He knows that just to defend a lawsuit is incredibly expensive, and hopes that people just give in.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fs9v0sdZixs
“Paramount, which owns CBS, has agreed to settle a laughable lawsuit in which President Donald Trump depicted the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris as a form of consumer fraud that supposedly had inflicted damages “reasonably believed to be no less than” $20 billion. Compared to that risible claim, the amount that Paramount has agreed to pay—$16 million for legal expenses and a contribution to Trump’s presidential library—is pretty puny. It is also less than the $25 million that Trump reportedly demanded during negotiations with Paramount. It is nevertheless $16 million more than Trump deserved based on claims that CBS had accurately described as “completely without merit.”
This humiliating settlement starkly illustrates how the powers of the presidency can be abused to punish news outlets for constitutionally protected speech. It does not bode well for freedom of the press under a president who has no compunction about weaponizing the government against journalists who irk him.
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You can judge for yourself whether the editing of the Harris interview qualified as “lying to the American People.” But there is no question that it was protected by the First Amendment, which does not include an exception for journalism that strikes the president as misleading, biased, or unfair. Trump is avowedly determined to use any tools at his disposal to make sure “no one gets away” with covering the news in a way that offends him, which does not seem like a “win” for anyone who values the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment.”
https://reason.com/2025/07/02/by-settling-trumps-laughable-lawsuit-against-cbs-paramount-strikes-a-blow-at-freedom-of-the-press/