Trump & Newsom Spar Over Censorship & POTUS’ Despotic Claim To Be “Reshaping The Media”
Another weekend and it’s another dust-up between Donald Trump and Gavin Newsom — this time about media censorship or control, depending on who you ask.
As the former Apprentice host’s sycophantic FCC chair threatens outlets over their Iran War coverage, a golfing Trump took to his Truth Social feed Saturday to brag about how he has been “reshaping the media” in his second term. Not long after one of the x feeds of the California governor, who is set to take the stage at SXSW in Austin, TX on Sunday, offered up a sarcastic “welcome to the golden age of censorship” response.
Besides the now expected Trump vs Newsom fusillade, the greater takeaway from today may be the extent to which POTUS has in fact put his thumb on MSM since coming back to the White House last year. Of course, even more so, as today’s posting reveals, is the blatant and stark truth in what Trump posted.
The swipes at the quick to crumble Disney over $15 million payoffs and DEI program kneecapping to curry favor likely added a fresh coat of shame over in Bob Iger‘s soon to be vacated CEO office.
A look at the messy graphic with its “Gone,” “Reforms” and “Winning” subtitles shows a lot of boosting about cutting PBS and NPR funding, neutering fact-checking on Mark Zuckerberg’s META, seeing respected journalists exit their broadcast perches (though some actually were seeking the more fertile ground of Substack and more), and Stephen Colbert losing his CBS late-night show soon.
In that CBS vein, Trump doesn’t even both to hide the power he believes he welds now “good friends” (as POTUS has called them in the past) David Ellison and Larry Ellison are poised to add Warner Bros Discovery to their Paramount empire.
Spotlighting CBS News’ hiring last year of MAGA loyalist Kenneth R. Weinstein as “News Bias Ombudsman” and CNN (who holds a special place of hatred in Trump’s heart), POTUS also notes that he supposedly “saved TikTok.” That savior move came with the senior Ellison (who is on any given day the 6th or 7th richest person on Earth) taking a significant stake in the influential and MAGA friendly social media platform.
Trump’s salvo Saturday comes after a week of even greater than usual barrages against legacy media from Pete Hegseth and White House aides about an alleged agenda to make “the president look bad.”
To that, as more accusations about Trump’s involvement with now dead pedophile Jeffrey Epstein became public, the U.S. economy is taking big hits as a fallout from fighting in the Middle East and American troops are dying as Trump golfs and brags, ex-CNN journey man (and longtime POTUS object of disdain) Jim Acosta may have nailed it better than Trump troller deluxe Newsom.
This stuff is totally “goofy,” among other things