Breitbart News, once an online outlet on the fringe, now gets treated like The New York Times in the White House briefing room. Bloggers and social media influencers who love Trump are being given press credentials while mainstream reporters find themselves locked out. As Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt put it, "Gone are the days where left-wing stenographers posing as journalists dictate who gets to ask what."
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter, converting it to X, has worked out perfectly for Trump. After Musk eliminated most of the site’s content moderation, Trump’s team has free rein to spread their message without the "censorship" they always complained about. Mark Zuckerberg has also been making moves, recently ending Facebook’s political fact-checking program just as Trump returned to office. A former White House aide summed it up: "In 2020, Twitter and Facebook were against us. Now? It’s a whole new ballgame."
Trump isn’t just building up friendly media—he’s also finding ways to punish outlets that don’t play along. His team has already filed lawsuits against The Washington Post and CNN for "defamation." Federal agencies have been ordered to cancel subscriptions to The New York Times and other "fake news" papers, cutting off revenue. There’s even talk of using the FCC to pull broadcast licenses from networks Trump doesn’t like. And then there’s the White House press pool. For decades, an independent group of journalists decided which reporters got to cover the president. Not anymore. Trump’s team now picks who gets in—and if you ask the wrong question, you might not be invited back. One longtime political reporter put it bluntly: "This is something you see in Russia, not America."
When governments control the media, democracy suffers. In Hungary, people still vote, but with most of the media in Orbán’s hands, the opposition barely has a chance. The U.S. isn’t there yet—but Trump is heading in that direction. If reporters fear lawsuits, online attacks, or losing access, they might stop investigating corruption. That means fewer exposés, fewer tough questions, and more unchecked power. America is already divided into two media bubbles. But if Trump fully builds his pro-Trump media empire, those bubbles could become completely separate realities—one where Trump is always right, and another where he’s the biggest threat to democracy. Courts, Congress, and media companies will have to decide whether they’re going to push back or give in. So far, it’s a mixed bag. Some journalists are fighting back, while others, like Meta, seem to be caving to pressure.
Trump’s plan is bold. He wants to make sure that when Americans turn on the news, scroll through social media, or open a newspaper, they see his version of events. Viktor Orbán has done it. Vladimir Putin did it. The question is: Can Trump pull it off in America? One media analyst put it this way: "If Trump’s strategy succeeds, it won’t matter how many scandals there are—his supporters will never hear about them. That’s how you create a government that never loses." The battle isn’t just between Trump and the media. It’s a fight for whether the United States will still have a free press—or whether it will go down the path of leaders like Orbán and Putin, where the only "news" you see is what the government wants you to see. The future of American democracy may depend on the answer.