“President Trump went on another tirade Tuesday against Fox News, slamming the network for platforming Independent Nebraskan Senate candidate Dan Osborn and Democratic Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed over ‘good old fashioned Republicans,'” The Wrap reports.
Said Trump: “They don’t show my record breaking Rallies the morning after, but others do, and that’s what MAGA is watching. Fox is promoting the Dumocrats, not the Republicans and MAGA. They have totally lost their way!”
“President Trump said Monday that reporters from the New York Times and other media outlets should be ‘arrested’ over their coverage of his Saturday rally in Ohio,” NewsNation reports.
“President Donald Trump offered an ominous prediction/threat on Monday, saying The New York Times is nearing the end of its existence,” Mediaite reports.
“The president went on a tear against the Gray Lady after it reported that the venue where he hosted a rally in Alabama on Friday ‘was not full.'”
“The White House is refusing to allow Politico on Air Force One on Monday, which means the news organization cannot fulfill its press corps pool responsibilities,” CNN reports.
“President Trump recruited a fleet of Fox News personalities for his second administration, filling key cabinet positions with the likes of Pete Hegseth, Sean Duffy and Mehmet Oz,” the New York Times reports.
“Now a homegrown star of the Trump White House is headed to Fox News.”
“Karoline Leavitt, who until August served as Mr. Trump’s press secretary and chief spokeswoman, is joining the Rupert Murdoch-owned channel next month as an on-air contributor.”
“Mark Thompson will remain at CNN after Skydance closes its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery,” Deadline reports.
“Thompson, who joined CNN in 2023, will serve as chairman and editor in chief of CNN, a slightly different title. His continuation at the network is likely a relief to staffers, with anxieties that the network would combine with CBS News. There also had been speculation that Bari Weiss, who serves as editor in chief of CBS News, would be given additional oversight over CNN.”
“President Trump ragged on several mainstream news outlets, including the Washington Post, New York Times and MS NOW, at a dinner he hosted Tuesday for News Corp. executives, including Rupert Murdoch,” Axios reports.
“The dinner, which the source described as cordial, comes amid a prolonged legal battle between the president and the Wall Street Journal.”
“I can name 100 great things I’ve done. I never get good press. I never get fair press. Doesn’t have to be good. All it has to be is fair. So at a certain point, you say, ‘What’s the purpose of like this crazy Kaitlin Collins?’ She’s a very average person. She’s the most unhappy young person I’ve ever seen. If I did something spectacular by any standard, and they would write about it, they will only write badly.”
— President Trump, quoted by Mediaite.
Rolling Stone: “Donald Trump has had it with the free press. He’s spent his second term trying to ban news outlets from the White House and ranting on social media about unfair coverage, and he’s only growing more hostile as his poll numbers tank ahead of the midterm elections. The president lost it on a Time reporter this week during an interview in the Oval Office.”
Said Trump: “You haven’t asked me one fucking positive question. All of this. What about this? What about that? What about that? What about this? All negative.”
The Economist: “If an American president set out to manipulate some of the best reporters—to preoccupy them with his political priorities, to distract them from what is really happening in government and to recruit them to distribute his propaganda—he could do no better than to invent the White House press corps.”
“Journalists are understandably upset that Donald Trump, in his imperious pettiness, is trying to ban from the White House those news organizations of which he disapproves. But they are wrong to say he would be undermining press freedom. He would actually be enhancing it, at least for those reporters he has targeted. He would be liberating them from the drudgery of covering the same staged events and briefings as a legion of other journalists. He is also giving the news media an opening to do away with the antiquated, corrupting and infantilizing rituals of the White House press corps.”
“The White House dropped CNN from the press pool covering President Donald Trump’s trip to Texas and Oklahoma on Thursday, a move that comes after a federal judge blocked the administration’s effort to more tightly control the media outlets that have access to the president,” the Washington Sun reports.
The Wrap: CNN again shut out of White House TV pool amid credential fight.
“The Trump administration bought advertising space on both CNN and MS NOW, running taxpayer-funded ads promoting President Donald Trump, even as the president barred both cable networks from the White House grounds — bans that have been paused by a federal judge,” the Washington Post reports.
“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called press coverage of the Iran war ‘a national betrayal,’ and described journalists as anti-American traitors for reporting on the actions of the Pentagon,” Bloomberg reports.
Said Hegseth: “A free press is of course important, but partisan activism that intentionally smears the troops and the historic mission that they are undertaking is fundamentally anti-American. It’s sick. It’s a national betrayal. It’s treason.”
“The chairman of the FCC on Wednesday dismissed concerns about the White House use of taxpayer money to pay for a series of ads promoting President Donald Trump,” Deadline reports.
Said FCC Chairman Brendan Carr: “I don’t think there’s anything unique or different about it, other than being a normal PSA, the types of PSAs that the government naturally and normally runs.”
“New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani stopped by ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ on Monday and addressed his friendly relationship with President Trump, prompting Kimmel to ask for advice on how to get on the president’s good side,” The Wrap reports.
Said Mamdani: “Sorry, brother. Look, the president and I have many disagreements. One thing we do agree on is this city, how much we love this city. So, from that first meeting in November of last year, I was just thinking of, ‘How can we make this meeting not about us but about New Yorkers? How can we spend that time talking about the things that could make life in this city that little bit easier?’ And that’s what it’s been.”
“Three news organizations that President Trump abruptly banished from White House grounds this month asked a federal court to block the ban until the case against it is resolved, saying the administration has ‘persisted in unpredictably and inconsistently implementing its ban’ despite a judge’s restraining order – including selectively barring CNN from White House pool duties,” CBS News reports.
“David Ellison had a seat at Donald Trump’s table Thursday night. The journalists at the news organization he is about to own were fighting for access to the same White House,” The Wrap reports.
“It was a striking split screen at the end of an extraordinary week for CNN.”
“Hours before Ellison arrived for a state dinner honoring Chinese President Xi Jinping, CNN was still battling the Trump administration over its ability to cover the president.”
Daniel Dale: “His relentless dishonesty has become a central feature of U.S. and world politics. Voters and members of Congress, allies and adversaries, CEOs and investors alike have had to try to figure out how to read a man whose words are so frequently not true.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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