Donald Trump admitted yesterday that he called Rupert Murdoch and demanded the Wall Street Journal kill its story about Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. When Murdoch couldn’t deliver, Trump promised to sue the media company and gleefully looked forward to putting Murdoch on the witness stand. Update: Just as this story was going live, it was reported that he had, in fact, sued. We’ll write about the details of the lawsuit as they become clear.
This is the exact type of behavior that Trump’s supporters spent years claiming represented “arguably the most massive attack against free speech in United States history” when they falsely accused the Biden administration of doing far less.
I understand that we live in an era of blatant hypocrisy where “it’s okay if a Republican does it” is the norm, but I wanted to call out how directly similar this scenario is.
For the past few years, we covered the Missouri v. Biden (later, Murthy v. Missouri) case through all its twists and turns. The underlying claim in the case from the states, and a few social media users who had their accounts restricted in some form or another, was that there was a huge First Amendment violation by the Biden administration because it had spoken to social media companies asking them about their policies regarding fighting disinformation on things around Covid.
The case was built on out-of-context communications and outright lies, but Trump-appointed Judge Terry Doughty ruled that the Biden administration asking social media companies to explain their editorial policies was “arguably the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.”
The Supreme Court dismissed the case for lack of standing, but the legal standard the Trump-supporting MAGA lawyers presented is crucial here. Louisiana Solicitor General Benjamin Aguinaga argued that any government “ask” to media companies about their editorial choices violates the First Amendment:
JUSTICE KAGAN: So, I mean, what about that? I mean, you know, take a — an example where — I mean, these platforms, they’re compilers of speech, and some part of the government, let’s call it part of the law enforcement arm of the government, says you might not realize it, but you are hosting a lot of terrorist speech, which is going to increase the chances that there’s going to be some terrible harm that’s going to take place, and we want to give you this information, we want to try to persuade you to take it down.
Are — are — the government can’t do that?
MR. AGUINAGA: The government can absolutely do that, Justice Kagan.
JUSTICE KAGAN: They’re taking —
MR. AGUINAGA: Terrorist activity, criminal —
JUSTICE KAGAN: — they’re — they’re asking them to take down the speech.
MR. AGUINAGA: Terrorist activity, criminal activity, that is not protected speech. Absolutely, the government can inform the — the
JUSTICE KAGAN: Well, that might — might be protected speech. I mean, terrorists engage in, you know, things that come under the First Amendment. I mean, let’s say they’re just recruiting people for their organizations.
MR. AGUINAGA: Your Honor, if it’s First Amendment speech, protected speech, then I think we’re in an entirely different world.
More directly, when Justice Kavanaugh asked about government officials telling media companies they should take down “factually erroneous information,” Aguinaga said that crosses the constitutional line:
JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: And one thing that I think I want to square up with you is if someone calls and — or contacts the social media company and says what you have there, this post, has factually erroneous information, so not a viewpoint that we disagree with, factually erroneous information, and the social media company says, we’ll take a look at that and — and you still think that’s significant encouragement that qualifies as coercion, if they take it down in response to concluding that it, in fact, is factually erroneous?
MR. AGUINAGA: No, Your Honor. If there’s no ask from the government, if the government’s just saying here’s our view of the statement —
JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: Okay. And we think it should be — it should be taken down, it’s up to you, but we think it should be taken down.
MR. AGUINAGA: I think that’s a harder case for me. I guess, you know, if you think it is a close case decide it under the First Amendment.
So by the legal standard Trump’s own lawyers established, any government request to suppress media coverage violates the First Amendment. Now let’s see how Trump himself measures up.
Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal published a story claiming that Trump and Epstein had a very close relationship, focusing on a supposed birthday card Trump allegedly created for Epstein. Trump’s response was his usual cry of “fake news!” about anything he dislikes but—more importantly—involves him admitting he had directly pressured Murdoch to kill the story:
If you can’t see the image, here’s the text of Trump’s rambling:
The Wall Street Journal, and Rupert Murdoch, personally, were warned directly by President Donald J. Trump that the supposed letter they printed by President Trump to Epstein was a FAKE and, if they print it, they will be sued. Mr. Murdoch stated that he would take care of it but, obviously, did not have the power to do so. The Editor of The Wall Street Journal, Emma Tucker, was told directly by Karoline Leavitt, and by President Trump, that the letter was a FAKE, but Emma Tucker didn’t want to hear that. Instead, they are going with a false, malicious, and defamatory story anyway. President Trump will be suing The Wall Street Journal, NewsCorp, and Mr. Murdoch, shortly. The Press has to learn to be truthful, and not rely on sources that probably don’t even exist. President Trump has already beaten George Stephanopoulos/ABC, 60 Minutes/CBS, and others, and looks forward to suing and holding accountable the once great Wall Street Journal. It has truly turned out to be a “Disgusting and Filthy Rag” and, writing defamatory lies like this, shows their desperation to remain relevant. If there were any truth at all on the Epstein Hoax, as it pertains to President Trump, this information would have been revealed by Comey, Brennan, Crooked Hillary, and other Radical Left Lunatics years ago. It certainly would not have sat in a file waiting for “TRUMP” to have won three Elections. This is yet another example of FAKE NEWS!
This isn’t just government pressure—it’s a sitting president threatening to weaponize the courts against media for editorial decisions over what he claims is “erroneous information.” By Trump’s own supporters’ legal standard, this is a textbook First Amendment violation. Perhaps the most massive attack against free speech in the history of the United States. (Update: as noted above, it’s now being reported that the lawsuit has been filed, which we’ll cover in a follow-up story).
He didn’t just ask them not to publish the thing, he told them he would sue them if they published and has now said he’s going to sue Murdoch’s “ass off.”
Compare this to what the Biden administration actually did: some officials sent less than polite emails to social media companies asking about their misinformation policies. No threats. No lawsuits. No demands for specific content removal. Yet Trump’s supporters called that “the most massive attack against free speech in United States history.”
Trump is doing exactly what the MAGA world spent years accusing Biden of doing, except with explicit threats and promised retaliation. And it’s crickets from the free speech warriors who spent four years screaming about government pressure on media.
The inevitable defense will be “but this was fake news, so of course he can do that.” But Biden officials also believed they were pointing to misinformation—and they never threatened personal lawsuits against media executives for editorial decisions.
Again, I get it. We judge the MAGA world on a curve. Everyone expects them to be authoritarian hypocritical censorial asshats, so it’s not news when they are.
We’ve normalized authoritarian behavior by expecting it from Trump, but this deserves attention. A sitting president threatening to sue media companies and their owners for editorial decisions isn’t just hypocrisy—it’s the kind of direct government coercion that actually violates the First Amendment.
And yes, part of the problem is that the media keeps capitulating every time Trump does this. CBS and ABC each paid millions of dollars to Trump over bogus lawsuits. So did Meta. This has only emboldened Trump. Media capitulation and kowtowing has taught Trump that he can bully and sue media companies to silence them. All of this is an actual First Amendment violating attack on speech.
The silence from Trump’s supposed free speech defenders says everything about how seriously they actually take the principles they claim to champion.