In a notorious February 2017 tweet, Trump blasted major networks and newspapers by name and declared, “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!” aljazeera.com . Such language, described by analysts as echoing authoritarian regimes, sent shockwaves through the journalistic community aljazeera.com . It signaled that the new President saw a free and critical press not as essential to democracy, but as a hostile force to be undermined.
Trump’s rhetoric soon translated into concrete actions against reporters and media outlets. His administration revoked or suspended press credentials for journalists who challenged him, upending long-standing norms of White House press access. In November 2018, after CNN’s Jim Acosta pressed Trump with unwanted questions, the White House yanked Acosta’s “hard pass” credentials without due process cjr.org cjr.org . CNN sued, and a federal judge ordered Acosta’s reinstatement, affirming that such expulsions cannot occur arbitrarily cjr.org . But rather than relent, the Trump White House responded by tightening credential rules in 2019. It imposed a new requirement that any reporter must have physically attended the White House at least 90 days in a prior 180-day span to qualify for a hard pass cjr.org . This seemingly neutral rule had sweeping impact: “virtually the entire press corps failed to meet this new test, including all six of the Post’s White House correspondents,” reported The Washington Post cjr.org . Dozens of veteran journalists suddenly faced the loss of their credentials and had to petition for “exceptions.” Trump critics like Dana Milbank found their exceptions denied – Milbank wrote, “I strongly suspect it’s because I’m a Trump critic”, noting the move fit Trump’s pattern of punishing outlets he disliked cjr.org . Indeed, nearly the entire White House press corps was converted to serving “at the pleasure” of Trump’s press team, who could remove them at any time for any reason cjr.org cjr.org . “This is what dictators do,” protested Senator Patrick Leahy as news broke, calling the mass credential purge “un-American and needs to be reversed ASAP” cjr.org . The message to journalists was chilling: fall in line or lose your access.
Trump also threatened legal and regulatory retribution against media companies. On the 2016 campaign trail, he vowed to “open up our libel laws” so public figures like him could sue news organizations more easily politico.com . “When The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace… we can sue them and win money… We’re going to have people sue you like you’ve never got sued before,” Trump told a rally, explicitly promising to weaken press protections established by New York Times v. Sullivan politico.com politico.com . As president, he repeatedly floated the idea of making it easier to sue the media for defamation. While he did not succeed in changing libel law (libel standards are set by the courts and largely beyond a president’s unilateral control), Trump’s rhetoric emboldened a flurry of defamation lawsuits intended to harass or silence news outlets. In 2020, his campaign filed libel suits against major papers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN over critical opinion columns firstamendmentwatch.org . These suits strained credulity – one federal judge dismissed the claims outright in early 2023 for failure to show any actual malice firstamendmentwatch.org firstamendmentwatch.org .