President-elect Donald Trump pledged throughout his campaign that he’d go after those he viewed as his “enemies” if elected; this largely included members of the media and news industry. And with Trump moving back into the White House in less than a month, it appears that he is planning to do just that.
Even before beginning his second term, a pair of high-profile cases have highlighted Trump’s animosity toward the media. The first came when ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit with Trump for $15 million. The then-former president sued the network for claiming that he had been found civilly liable for raping E. Jean Carroll; Trump was found liable for sexual assault, but not rape. Trump is also suing pollster J. Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register for a Nov. 2 poll showing Kamala Harris up by three points in Iowa, claiming this amounted to “election interference.” Trump ultimately won Iowa by double digits.
Many have criticized ABC News for settling with Trump, calling it a form of capitulation, and most experts agree that the lawsuit against Selzer and the Register is without merit. However, these circumstances highlight what is likely to be an ongoing battle between Trump and the media over the next four years.
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What did the commentators say?
Many analysts say they are seeing deference toward Trump by the media, which could “embolden him to escalate his use of private civil litigation against his media critics when he returns to power next month,” said Josh Gerstein at Politico. This would represent an unprecedented conflict between the White House and the media, as “no modern president — including Trump in his first term — has made a habit of personally suing the media while in the Oval Office.” Among the “arrows in Trump’s legal quiver is the defamation lawsuit — a type of civil claim in which publishers can be ordered to pay eye-popping sums if a court finds that they knowingly lied.”
