Trump's War on the Press

A MONTH BEFORE last November’s presidential election, 60 Minutes aired an interview with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris that was edited to make her response to a question about Israel “more succinct,” as the show’s producers put it.

- Jacob Sullum

But Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, complained that “her REAL ANSWER WAS CRAZY, OR DUMB, so they actually REPLACED it with another answer in order to save her or, at least, make her look better.” As Trump saw it, that was “A FAKE NEWS SCAM, which is totally illegal.”

How so? According to a lawsuit that Trump filed against CBS in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on October 31, editing the Harris interview to make her seem slightly more cogent violated that state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act and caused Trump “at least” $10 billion in damages. A lawsuit that Trump filed against The Des Moines Register on December 16 follows the same playbook, claiming the newspaper’s coverage of an inaccurate presidential poll violated a similar Iowa law.

In both cases, Trump— the man now elected president—implausibly describes news reporting as “election interference” that constitutes consumer fraud because it misleads viewers or readers. It is hard to overstate the threat to freedom of the press posed by such reasoning, which transforms journalism that irks Trump into a tort justifying massive damage awards.