Trump 2.0 greets the press with a fight

Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN

(CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump isn’t only busy getting ready to return to the White House. He’s also engaged in a multi-front war with media organizations.

ABC News settled one lawsuit brought by Trump right before he filed another against the Des Moines Register and its parent company.

There’s a much larger universe of Trump’s legal issues, which includes looming questions about the hundreds of millions of dollars he has been found liable to pay in multiple cases: in federal court for defaming E. Jean Carroll in recent years and for sexually abusing her decades ago, and for civil fraud in New York state court for inflating his net worth to get more favorable loans. Trump was also found guilty of falsifying business records for hush money payments made before the 2016 election and a New York judge ruled this week that Trump does not have presidential immunity protections in the criminal case. Those will be separate legal dramas to follow.

But his concerted effort to take media organizations to court before and after the presidential election sets the table for an environment in which the soon-to-be-president is actively trying to discourage critical press coverage, a recipe for a First Amendment showdown.

I talked to Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media analyst and author of the Reliable Sources newsletter, about Trump’s victory in the ABC News lawsuit, his lawsuit against the Des Moines Register over a bad poll and what it means for the next four years. Our conversation, conducted by phone and edited for clarity, is below:

What feels different in these lawsuits?

WOLF: There’s nothing new about Trump suing media organizations. What feels different right now?

STELTER: What’s new is that he’s about to be president again, and he has multiple pending lawsuits against media organizations. The other big new factor is that ABC just settled for an astonishing $16 million – a $15 million donation and $1 million in attorneys fees. When I saw the ABC settlement, the first word that popped in my head was the word “emboldened.” Clearly, this settlement has emboldened Trump and his allies, and I think we see that in the Des Moines Register lawsuit that was filed on Monday.

Why might ABC News have settled?

WOLF: Let’s go more into that ABC settlement. And full disclosure, I used to work there. Do you think that that was a signal that ABC News felt that they were wrong, that what George Stephanopoulos said was wrong, or a signal that they just didn’t want to have the fight?

STELTER: Disney did not want to have a protracted fight with the president of the United States. This case would have gone to trial in the spring. It would have gone to trial in Florida, where Trump dominated the most recent election. Disney had a lot of reasons to want to make this go away. For Disney management, this was a problem that needed to be solved.

Now, was Stephanopoulos correct on the air? I would say he was incorrect. I would say he screwed up, both in what he said and how aggressively he said it. There is still a debate about the language around the E. Jean Carroll case.

(Note: As Stelter previously wrote, the lawsuit stemmed from a March 10, 2024, ABC segment in which Stephanopoulos repeatedly said that Trump had been “found liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll civil case. Trump has denied all wrongdoing toward Carroll, but last year a jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll, sufficient to hold him liable for battery, though it did not find that Carroll proved he raped her.)

WOLF: And Disney and Republicans have a history beyond ABC News of doing legal battle in Florida, right?

STELTER: That’s the key context. For a company as big as Disney, a Trump lawsuit is actually pretty small, but political threats against Disney are a big deal. Disney spent years tangling with (Gov.) Ron DeSantis in Florida. Trump bashed ABC after the ABC (presidential) debate last fall, and it’s clear to me that some of these big media companies would rather not be on Trump’s bad side if they can help it.

The fight is part of the point for Trump

WOLF: Let’s move to the Des Moines Register, which is a completely different issue, where the paper published a preelection poll that suggested Trump was behind in Iowa, a state he ultimately won convincingly. Is there a reason for him to claim election interference in publishing a bad poll?

STELTER: There’s a reason why Trump should be mad about that poll. I think a lot of readers were mad because that poll wasn’t just wrong, it was horrendously wrong. It completely missed what was happening in Iowa. But being mad is one thing. Getting even by filing a lawsuit is another, very different thing. His lawyers are using Iowa’s Consumer Fraud Act as the pretense for this lawsuit. They are trying to say that consumers were deceived. This is legally a wild stretch. I have yet to find a lawyer who thinks this will succeed. But we know that with Trump, winning and losing isn’t really the point. Having the fight is often the point. This lawsuit has been helpful because it has distilled Trump’s strategy with regards to suing the media. He already wins to some degree, by getting the headline about the lawsuit. He’s able to get a banner on Fox News and elsewhere that says he is fighting the press, that he is suing the press, that he is holding the media accountable.

What about his suit against CBS News?

WOLF: There’s another lawsuit against CBS News, filed before the election (over its interview with Kamala Harris). Do you think that that is the kind of thing he will continue to fight as president since he won the election?

STELTER: The “60 Minutes” lawsuit is another legal stretch. There is no evidence that “60 Minutes” committed a crime. There is ample evidence that it did nothing of the sort. That said, it’s unclear if a judge will throw out Trump’s suit against CBS. Maybe that suit will progress to the discovery phase, and maybe CBS, like ABC, will decide to cut a deal. I think that very much remains to be seen. For the time being, CBS is fighting to get that suit thrown out and saying that the First Amendment protects its editing decisions on “60 Minutes.” And that is just objectively true. “60 Minutes” can edit an interview and should be able to produce a television segment without fear of a presidential lawsuit.

But you asked if these lawsuits are going to continue. There’s no reason to believe that Trump will give up on these suits when he’s president. There’s ample reason to believe that he may intensify these lawsuits. Trump made a revealing comment at a press conference when he talked about his legal strategy earlier this week. He said he thought the Justice Department should have filed these suits. Does that mean that he will want his Justice Department to file suits against the media? I think that’s a fair question. It’s an open question right now.

How will Trump’s administration treat the media?

WOLF: What do we know about how his Justice Department treated journalists in his first term? How will things be different from the Biden administration now?

STELTER: Leak investigations are a real danger for news outlets. This was true in the Obama years. This was true in the Trump years. In the Biden years, there was a review of the DOJ’s process. There was an attempt to add protections for the press and make it less likely that the journalists will be caught up in leak investigations. But the Biden era reforms were written in pencil and can easily be erased by Trump’s incoming team. And I would venture to say they probably will be erased.

Newsroom lawyers are girding for leak investigations, subpoenas and other forms of intimidation and retaliation.

Is this a new era of media accountability?

WOLF: ABC News is paying a settlement to Trump. Fox News paid a massive settlement regarding the 2020 election to Dominion. (Former Alaska Gov.) Sarah Palin has gotten a new trial in her (defamation) lawsuit against The New York Times. Is this a new era of media accountability?

STELTER: The legal landscape has become more challenging for news outlets in a number of different ways. Lawyers perceive that juries are less favorable toward the news, and that makes the risk of a jury trial more intense.

Will the Supreme Court revisit libel law?

WOLF: A lot of media law and First Amendment protection is built around a 1964 Supreme Court case, New York Times v. Sullivan, which set a standard for libel claims by public figures. At least one justice, Clarence Thomas, wants to revisit that decision. Is it the expectation among people immersed in the media that this decision will be challenged soon? (Note: The court declined to revisit the decision as recently as 2023.)

STELTER: Conservative lawyers and activists eagerly want to challenge the Sullivan decision. They have been looking for the perfect case to do so for a number of years. Who knows if and when that will actually happen. What we do know is that media lawyers are going to be some of the most important people inside newsrooms in the next few years. There are an increased number of threats of lawsuits and there is an incoming president who has thought long and hard about how to punish the media using all the tools at his disposal. At his press conference earlier this week, Trump gave a lot of vague and unclear answers to other questions, but he had a very clear answer about wanting to sue the media, to “straighten out” the press.

So while we should remain open minded about the incoming president and the new administration, media lawyers are already on guard about intimidation, about retaliation, about retribution.

But here’s the thing: Legal challenges to news coverage could also result in strengthened protections for news outlets. In other words, if lawsuits pile up against newsrooms, and those lawsuits keep getting thrown out, or media outlets keep prevailing in the courts, that could also send an important signal in and of itself. We’re very much in an unsettled environment when it comes to the media and the law.

The punishment is in the process

WOLF: Trump wants to have this fight and it could be painful for media organizations.

STELTER: As our colleague Hadas Gold recently wrote, for news outlets, the punishment is in the process. Merely going through the motions and hiring lawyers and filing motions and all of the machinations that come with being sued are part of the punishment.

It’s also important to recognize, when I look at MAGA accounts on X, when I look at pro Trump accounts on Truth Social, some of his fans want the press to be punished. I think that’s an important part of the story. He’s not filing lawsuits just because it makes him feel good. He’s also filing lawsuits because some of his fans want it to happen. The environment that journalists take for granted, that the news media should be free and fair, should investigate government, should hold politicians accountable – those assumptions are not always shared by all voters.

Democrats are also frustrated with the media

WOLF: Your most recent Reliable Sources newsletter was actually about President Joe Biden complaining about the media. So this is not a completely one sided thing. Why do Democrats dislike the media right now?

STELTER: I have noticed Biden wondering aloud about the structural changes in the American media, the decline of newspapers, waning viewership of television news, the splintering of media into multiple realities. Like many Democrats, he is worried about where people are getting information. It’s that sense of people not bearing the same reality anymore. In the wake of the Democrats’ defeat in the election, I think many Democrats are thinking long and hard about how information is flowing, how news is shared, where people are getting news, where people are getting views. It’s a very different dialogue than Trump’s attempt to squash and punish unfavorable coverage. For Biden, it’s more a question of, is there any shared reality anymore, and what happens if there’s not? What happens if there’s not any common ground and common set of facts?

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