Friend,

In 2015, Donald Trump kicked off his presidential campaign with a slew of racist lies that were broadcast and shared to millions of people in the United States. From that point on, it was clear that traditional media outlets and social-media platforms alike had no qualms about giving Trump a platform — with industry heavyweights reveling in how they were profiting off of the former reality-TV star’s unchecked disinformation and bigotry.

And now, in 2024, Trump is once again the presumptive Republican nominee for president. We have not forgotten how Trump abused our broken media system to normalize his authoritarian-style campaigns. Nor have we forgotten his anti-democratic efforts to cling to power, which incited the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Since most commercial media outlets have never reckoned with their responsibility for Trumpism, another Trump campaign marks a perilous moment for the health of our republic. But Free Press Action has successfully taken on Trump before, and we’re prepared to do it again.

We successfully opposed his attempt to cut funding for public media.¹ We raised hell when he spied on peaceful protesters’ private data.² We called his bluff when he tried to deceive us about the spread and treatment of COVID-19.³ And when he used social media to sow violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, we successfully pressured all of the major social-media platforms to expel him.⁴

We know what Trump has in store for us, and it’s not pretty: flooding social media with chaos and big lies, mainstreaming demagoguery, attacking dissenting voices, and pushing dangerous lies about the press that make journalists less safe.

During a Veterans Day speech, Trump used rhetoric nearly identical to language that Adolf Hitler used.⁵ Rather than honoring veterans on a solemn day, Trump labeled his adversaries “vermin” — promising that, if elected, he would use his power to “root out” opposing voices.

This is a dramatic escalation from the already-frightening behavior we saw last June, when he stoked calls to defund PBS over its coverage of his (many) indictments.⁶ What was he so angry about? As Trump lied about the 2020 election and threatened federal prosecutors, NewsHour clearly stated: “Experts warn that inflammatory rhetoric from elected officials or people in power can prompt individual actors to commit acts of violence.” Trump’s inflammatory speech emboldens his loyalists every time he’s at the podium — which is why we must examine who, exactly, is providing the microphone.

Trump knows that he can get away with his strongman schemes because Big Media outlets have let him off the hook time and time again: Profit-hungry execs continue prioritizing ratings over reliable coverage by boosting Trump and rehabilitating his image.⁷ And it’s not just Fox News and Sinclair Broadcast Group:

• Univision exec Bernardo Gómez met in private with Trump and Jared Kushner in 2023,⁸ leading to a Fox-like propaganda “interview” where the former president ranted against reproductive rights without any pushback.
• Mathias Döpfner, head of the media giant that owns Politico and Business Insider, sent a message on Election Day in 2020 in which he asked his fellow execs to “pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America.”⁹
• Then-CBS CEO Les Moonves said in 2016 that devoting so much airtime to then-candidate Trump “may not be good for America, but it’s damn good for CBS.”¹⁰
• Former CNN CEO Chris Licht praised the network’s decision to give Trump a friendly platform last summer as a positive for the country. The truth is much simpler: CNN, like so many other media companies, wanted a ratings boost.¹¹

Trump’s circus will continue to find willing accomplices in the media. Free Press Action will continue demanding that mainstream media place Trump’s authoritarian tactics in their proper context, just as we will keep pressuring social-media executives to stop amplifying election denialism and hate speech.

When it comes to our democracy and public safety, we must be explicit: Trump is vowing to be a dictator on “day one.”¹² The media continue to trivialize this threat by serving up softball interviews, giving airtime to Trump’s sycophantic allies and treating his abject extremism as standard political fare. A recent Meet the Press panel even described his push for a draconian national abortion ban as Trump “acting like a normal politician” and “moving toward the center.”¹³

In other words: The news business is about putting on a show that will draw the largest numbers of viewers, and Trump already has his hair and makeup done up for primetime. The survival of our democracy might be a mere line item on a budget for Big Media, but it sure means more to us.

Stay strong,

All of us at Free Press Action
freepress.net

P.S. We’ve been gearing up for this fight thanks to supporters like you — if you’re able, please chip in today to keep us going.

1. “Don't Let Trump Destroy Public Media,” Free Press, March 16, 2017

2. “Stop Trump from Spying on Protesters,” Free Press, Nov. 19, 2018

3. “Fight the Fox-Trump Conspiracy Cycle,” Free Press, Aug. 13, 2020

4. “Twitter Permanently Bans Trump, Citing Concerns He Will Incite Further Violence,” Free Press, Jan. 9, 2021

5. “How Trump’s Rhetoric Compares with Hitler’s,” The Washington Post, Nov. 13, 2023

6. “Trump's Lies Spark Right-Wing Cries to Defund PBS,” Free Press, June 14, 2023

7. “The News Media Isn’t Biased Against Trump. It’s Biased For Him,” Intelligencer, Oct. 6, 2020

8. “Kushner's Mexican Connection,” Popular Information, Nov. 27, 2023

9. “Politico’s New German Owner Has a ‘Contrarian’ Plan for American Media,” The Washington Post, June 6, 2022

10. “Leslie Moonves on Donald Trump: ‘It May Not Be Good for America, but It’s Damn Good for CBS,’” The Hollywood Reporter, Feb. 29, 2016

11. “CNN's Trump Trainwreck and the Mainstreaming of Authoritarians,” Free Press, May 15, 2023

12. “Trump Says He Will Be a Dictator Only on ‘Day One’ if Elected President,” The Guardian, Dec. 6, 2023

13. “Trump Privately Signals Support for 16-week National Abortion Ban,” NBC News, Feb. 18, 2024