In an Oval Office meeting that week, Trump lamented it was “frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write” reuters.com – a statement utterly at odds with American constitutional principles. While no TV licenses were actually yanked (the FCC doesn’t license networks per se, and individual station licenses are renewed only on set cycles reuters.com ), Trump’s willingness to publicly encourage punitive regulation against news outlets was unprecedented in modern times. It earned comparisons to President Nixon, who privately plotted to use the FCC against The Washington Post during Watergate reuters.com . As one media law professor observed, Trump’s behavior was “Nixon on steroids” in its brazenness cpj.org .
Trump’s antipathy extended even to once-neutral government media. Late in his term, he engineered a hostile takeover of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) – the parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) and other U.S.-funded international broadcasters. In June 2020, after a long confirmation fight, Trump’s appointee Michael Pack became CEO of USAGM washingtonpost.com . Pack, a conservative filmmaker and ally of Steve Bannon, immediately began dismantling the “firewall” that protected VOA’s editorial independence washingtonpost.com washingtonpost.com . He “rescinded a rule that blocked him from getting involved in news and editorial decisions,” essentially claiming authority to shape coverage washingtonpost.com washingtonpost.com . Current and former officials were alarmed, saying Pack clearly aimed to “reshape VOA and its sister agencies into promotional arms for President Trump” washingtonpost.com . It was a bitter irony: VOA’s mission is to counter foreign propaganda and model a free press, yet now VOA journalists feared being turned into instruments of U.S. government propaganda washingtonpost.com . During Pack’s tenure, he fired respected network heads, disbanded advisory boards, and installed Trump loyalists washingtonpost.com . He publicly blasted VOA’s journalism as “substandard” without specifics washingtonpost.com . He terminated visas of foreign reporters at VOA on vague suspicions they might be spies washingtonpost.com . He even ordered investigations of veteran VOA reporters for “anti-Trump bias” – for example targeting VOA’s White House correspondent Steve Herman – though no wrongdoing was found washingtonpost.com . In one case, Pack allegedly forced out a VOA Urdu service journalist after a report on then-candidate Joe Biden, a move whistleblowers said blatantly violated the statutory firewall washingtonpost.com . By October 2020, VOA journalists and six of Pack’s own subordinates filed whistleblower complaints, accusing him of gross abuse of power and First Amendment violations washingtonpost.com washingtonpost.com . A former USAGM general counsel warned: “The firewall protects the editorial independence of Voice of America… As with any news organization, the absence of a robust firewall… risks the credibility and ultimately the effectiveness of the enterprise.” washingtonpost.com . Pack brushed aside such concerns. Only a change in administration stopped his actions – he was fired by President Biden on Inauguration Day 2021, and the firewall was restored. But the episode revealed Trump’s willingness to politicize even U.S. public media outlets. As one VOA whistleblower attorney summed up, Pack’s campaign to erode editorial independence was “sad and outrageous and plainly violate[s] the Constitution” washingtonpost.com . It showed how fragile institutional safeguards can be when top officials are determined to break them.
Using Government Agencies to Punish Media Enemies
Beyond direct attacks on journalists, the Trump administration tried subtler means to bend media to its will via federal agencies. The Department of Justice (DOJ) under Trump took actions that many viewed as politically motivated interventions in the media landscape. A prime example was the DOJ’s 2017 lawsuit to block AT&T’s $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner (CNN’s parent company). Historically, such vertical mergers (between a content producer and a distributor) were usually approved.