Pay Close Attention to Trump’s War on the Free Press

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1786

Donald Trump is providing Canadians a master class in how to destroy the bulwark of democracy that is a free press. The methods of his administration include not just the outright arrest of journalists trying to do their jobs, but other, less obvious means of media control that we in this country should watch closely as our own news organizations struggle to maintain their financial independence.

Here are four ways the rogue president is undercutting the U.S. First Amendment, which prohibits the federal government from passing laws restricting free speech or curtailing a free press.

Method 1. Help your allies acquire big media

Trump’s super wealthy friends, many of them the tech oligarchs who surrounded him at his inauguration, are buying big media properties and shifting them to the ideological right. Often with Donald Trump’s help.

Trump’s billionaire buddy Larry Ellison, and his son David, control Paramount Skydance, which owns CBS as of August 2025. Under Ellison, the sixth richest man in the world, CBS News has lurched to the right. Newly installed editor-in-chief Bari Weiss quickly signaled her tilt by holding back the broadcast of a 60 Minutes report critical of Trump’s deportations.

Principled journalists at CBS were appalled. Anderson Cooper announced his decision to leave the network’s flagship news program 60 Minutes after a 20-year run there.

Trump is no doubt pleased. The bully-in-chief, who uses disparaging names for people he dislikes, has repeatedly referred to Cooper as Allison Cooper.

But Cooper, who remains a prime-time anchor at CNN, likely has not slipped free of the Ellisons’ pressures. The father and son tycoons are poised to take over CNN after Netflix backed out of its bid for Warner Brothers Discovery, the parent company of the cable news network.

CNN has long been a target of Trump’s wrath. The president won’t even take questions from CNN at his press conferences.

Trump has said he believes the Ellison-owned Paramount Skydance will do the “right” thing with its new property. The mood among staffers at CBS and CNN may be summed up by one CBS producer who, responded, “fuck, fuck, fuck.” Journalists in both outlets fear the fallout will include layoffs as well as torquing of coverage.

Apparently the Ellisons have explicitly discussed the possibility of axing some of the hosts that Trump does not like, including Erin Burnett and Briana Keilar. Interesting, given that in December Trump said whoever wins the bid for CNN should oust that company’s leadership.

Meanwhile, Larry Ellison has relocated his official residence to Manalapan, Florida, a 20-minute drive from Mar-a-Lago. This after Trump and Ellison brokered a deal that gave Ellison’s company Oracle more media control, a 15 per cent stake in TikTok in the U.S. Ellison junior recently attended Trump’s State of the Union address as a guest of MAGA Republican Lindsey Graham.

The Ellisons belong to an expanding club of Trump’s media mogul buddies. Take, for example, another one of the world’s richest men, Amazon kingpin and Trump supporter Jeff Bezos.

The owner of the Washington Post since 2013, Bezos has been increasingly criticized for interfering with the iconic paper’s editorial and opinion pages. One of the most blatant examples of his pro-Trump intervention was his decision to prevent the Post from endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris in the last presidential election. Just weeks ago, Bezos laid off 300 journalists at the Post, one-third of the workforce.

Somewhere Viktor Orban is smiling and nodding. Hungary’s authoritarian leader, much admired by Trump, has neutered Hungary’s free press by simply purchasing opposition news outlets through holding companies controlled by his wealthy allies. By 2022, voters heard only one message — that of the government. The opposition simply has no means of reaching voters outside Budapest.

Method 2. Criminalize the committing of journalism

Having rounded up friendly media moguls like Bezos and the Ellisons, you might think Donald Trump would not feel the need to round up journalists and threaten them with prison. Except, that’s what his administration has done.

On Jan. 30, Don Lemon, a former CNN anchor, and fellow independent journalist Georgia Fort were treated as common criminals.

It was carried out with maximum drama. Just after midnight, Lemon was arrested by about a dozen law enforcement officers. He was placed in a holding room for over 12 hours. Initially, Lemon, a loud and steady critic of the Trump administration, was not allowed the standard phone call or contact with a lawyer.

What was Lemon’s supposed crime? He was charged with violating the rights of worshippers at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota on Jan. 18. In fact, he was simply reporting on the protesters, who interrupted church services. Interestingly, the pastor of the church in question was an employee of Trump’s infamous Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, or ICE. Fort faces similar charges.

Lemon nailed the inanity of the charges against him, saying, “I went there to chronicle and document and record.” In other words, to do his job as a journalist.

A federal magistrate judge rejected a criminal complaint against Lemon, which enraged U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi. Then a federal grand jury returned the indictment. Lemon faces charges of conspiracy against the rights of religious freedom at a place of worship.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer joined other politicians and press freedom watchdogs in condemning the arrests of Lemon and Fort.

“The arrest is a dark message to journalists everywhere: if you dare criticize this administration, watch your back. That is not democracy. That is a police state and that is pure authoritarian bile. Democracy will suffer if the government chokes our civil liberties,” said Schumer.

Method 3. Sue to make news executives tremble

Trump has another favourite tool for intimidating news agencies — the courts. In December 2025, the president filed a US$10-billion lawsuit against the BBC in Florida. He has also sued ABC and CBS, the New York Times for $15 billion, and the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones, and News Corp. for $10 billion. His aims are naked — to mute or silence his critics and cash in.

Trump’s “lawfare” appears to be working. Media giants like ABC and CBS have settled cases that many commentators believed they could have won if contested. But they decided to settle, rather than take on the U.S. president in court.

Method 4. Flex the threat of regulators nixing licences and mergers

Some of Donald Trump’s lawsuits can be read as basic extortion — when, for example, the company he is suing is seeking regulatory approval for a major merger or expansion that will mean millions of dollars for executives and shareholders.

That apparently was the case in July, when CBS announced that “The Late Show,” hosted by Stephen Colbert, would end in May 2026. Colbert has long rankled Trump with his cutting monologues for his highly popular program.

Remember, near the top of this story, when it was noted that the Ellisons had acquired the parent company of CBS? That $8-billion merger deal to create Paramount Skydance required approval by the Federal Communications Commission, a federal regulator run by an ardent Trumpist.

As the FCC’s decision remained in limbo, the parent company of CBS, Paramount Global, surprised legal observers by handing a $16-million settlement to Trump who claimed its program 60 Minutes had unethically edited an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

When the news broke that Paramount Global would pay up, Colbert called out his employer for caving in, calling the settlement a “bribe.” The next shoe dropped as Paramount Global announced that Colbert’s CBS show was too expensive to keep on the air, an excuse that had many eyes rolling. Then, guess what? The sale of Paramount Global to the Trump-aligned Ellisons to form Paramount Skydance was approved by the FCC.

Our duty to be watchdogs

Many U.S. presidents have tried to restrain the media, and it’s doubtful that any politician, including those here in Canada, welcomes relentless press scrutiny. But maybe Donald Trump is doing Canadians a grim favour by being so overt about his contempt for journalism and free speech, and his desire to mold news organizations to his aims.

Last month, yet again, he disparaged the role of journalist, posting on social media, “We need more competition against THE ENEMY, the Fake News National TV networks.”

We in this country may feel we are far from reaching such a breakdown of our political culture. But recall that in the last election the candidate for the Conservative Party of Canada campaigned on gutting the CBC and expressed disdain for many journalists simply trying to do their jobs by posing questions.

Note, as well, that ownership of Canada’s corporate news media is highly concentrated, and our biggest newspaper chains claim to be struggling to stay in business. One, Postmedia, is two-thirds owned by an American hedge fund.

The lesson emanating from the precarious democracy to our south is that free speech and a free press are never free. They require constant vigilance. More than that, they call for the courage to say no to politicians like Donald Trump, who think that the free press is either a vanity mirror or the enemy.

Jefferson, not Trump, had it right. A free press is nothing short of the guarantor of democracy.