ICYMI: Trump's Use Of Legal Action Against The Media

0:07You're listening to the 1A Podcast. I'm Jen White, and this is In Case You Missed It, where we bring you some of the week's most important conversations you might have missed. President Donald Trump is suing the publisher and owner of The Wall Street Journal and seeking damages of$10 billion for alleged defamation. Last week, the paper published an article describing a letter they say Trump sent the disgraced self-styled financier Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003. That letter reportedly includes a lewd drawing. The president claims he didn't write a letter and his lawsuit says it doesn't exist.

0:42The journal's publisher says they will defend against the lawsuit. The suit names News Corp, its chair emeritus Rupert Murdoch, its chief executive Robert Thompson, and two journal reporters as defendants. Rupert Murdoch owns the journal through his companies. In a post on Truth Social, the president wrote in part that the lawsuit was filed, quote, quote, not only on behalf of your favorite president, me, but also in order to continue standing up for all Americans who will no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the fake news media, end quote. The lawsuits against the journal's reporting follows other lawsuits President Trump has filed against other media companies, including ABC News in 2024 and Paramount, the company that owns CBS News.

1:23Paramount settled monetarily with the president earlier this month to the tune of$16 million, but the company did not issue an apology nor admit to any wrongdoing. How is the president using legal action and the threat of it against the media? And what does it mean for journalism at these organizations? After the break, David Folken Flick joins us to discuss. He's NPR's media correspondent and author of the book Murdoch's World, the last of the old media empires. Remember, for all the latest news, be sure to visit npr.org or tune into your local member station. We'll be right back.

2:01David, welcome back to the program. Pleasure. So what's notable to you about this lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal for its story about the president and Jeffrey Epstein? I mean, I got to say, I think the thing that's most notable about it is the name of its leading defendant, K. Rupert Murdoch, a man who has allied himself for the past decade with the president's fortunes. and it's an alliance of transactional utility for both of them. Murdoch doesn't have a high degree of admiration for Trump. He thinks he's not impressive at all, although I think he thinks that the president has a certain kind of political cunning.

2:38But for Trump to sue Murdoch is to say, even those inside my orbit, even giants. I mean, Murdoch is a titanic figure, not only for the media, but in conservative circles. And for him to go after the founder of Fox News and to say, look, you know, I'm bigger than you. I'm going to sue you and try to bring you to heel as well, puts on notice not only people within the Murdoch orbit, but puts on notice anyone else in the larger MAGA world, in the, you know, conservative ecosphere that's Trump saying, just because you've been good to me doesn't mean that I'm going to not notice when you do things I don't like.

3:15From your perspective, as someone who follows the media very closely, covers it, has been covering it for years. What is your assessment of the Wall Street Journal's decision to print this piece and stand by its journalism and say, you know, take us to court if you want? I'm an admirer of the Wall Street Journal's reporting and its news coverage. I think, you know, they have a different sensibility than, say, the New York Times does, but its reporters are rigorous and smart and tough. They've made certain kinds of, you know, there have been tensions within this newsroom, as with all newsrooms on coverage of certain very delicate and difficult issues.

3:53But they clearly felt they had the goods. I will say a lot of people are saying, well, where is that note that President Trump is supposed to have sent, you know, these two decades ago to the man who's now America's most notorious sex offender, right? But I think that, you know, we haven't seen the note yet. I think it is fair to say that the journal and its journalists believe in the reporting they've done. They say they're going to defend this resolutely. They have one of the best media legal teams in the country. And, you know, Murdoch has published things that cut against his interests in the past in the Wall Street Journal.

4:31I think it's both because he likes a good story but also because he feels that's the delivering on the brand promise for the Wall Street Journal that's different than, say, how he thinks about the reporting in the New York Post or at times even on Fox News. If you think back to Theranos, the scandal involving the blood diagnosis company, Murdoch was one of the or perhaps the largest single private investor in that company. And yet his investigative reporter exploded it and showed it to be based on fraudulent claims. You know, the journal published it. You know, Murdoch, you would think under normal circumstances wouldn't back down in this case.

5:10But we'll see what happens. Well, on Monday, the White House removed the journal from the press poll for the president's upcoming trip to Scotland. So whatever happens with the lawsuit, we're seeing this retaliatory act by the president against the journal's journalists. So how have you seen the way a president interacts with the press poll shift under this new administration? Sure. I mean, this is sort of an intensification of what he did in his first term. First term, the attempt to discredit, to hold press at a distance, to elevate, you know, seemingly extreme or marginal figures in the media world.

5:49This is sort of codifying that he did that early on, right, with the effort to hold at bay the Associated Press because it had committed the egregious sin in his eyes and his administration's views of referring to what has been inherently called the Gulf of Mexico. Excuse me, has refused to call the Gulf of Mexico by his preferred term the Gulf of America. And the AP said, look, you know, we serve international clients. You know, we're going to have our independent judgment on this. And they said, well, you can't do that and continue to have the kind of access that you've had to the president on behalf of the American people, the greater public or all the clients that you serve throughout the media world.

6:27Similarly, he's treating Murdoch's reporters the same ways. And this is kind of astonishing because Trump is transactional and because nobody has done more, I think it's fair to say, to help Trump be elected and help prop him up during difficult times than the various media entities of Rupert Murdoch himself. And Murdoch, you know, you know, when you think of legal claims for defamation, you know, the biggest one that I can think of was a claim settled for almost eight hundred million dollars by the Murdochs for what was said by Fox News's hosts and guests, amplifying and affirming Trump's wild and baseless claims, even lies about some notion of fraud in the 2020 race.

7:08And they had to pay that to an election machine company. In a sense, you could think of that as almost an in-kind contribution to the greater ballast that Trump needed from his supporters so that he could somehow deny to himself and them that he had lost. The Murdochs made that payment to get out from under what would have been possibly an even more crushing verdict. But, you know, it's hard for one to look at the Murdochs and say these guys have been deeply unfair to the president. And in this lawsuit, you know, it's, you know, he's essentially saying you've defamed me by saying I sent a ribald card to a guy who later became known as a sex offender.

7:47But that's not clearly defamatory, at least from our understanding of what it's meant under the law, you know, until this point. Well, I want to turn to the cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Last Thursday, the talk show host announced CBS had canceled the program and it would end once the current season is over in May of 2026. CBS said the cancellation was, quote, purely a financial decision due to the show's cost. Now, on Monday night, Colbert commented on the network's decision to cancel The Late Show. How could it purely be a financial decision if The Late Show is number one in ratings?

8:19Over the weekend, somebody at CBS followed up their gracious press release with a gracious anonymous leak, saying they pulled the plug on our show because of losses pegged between$40 million and$50 million a year. 40 million is a big number. I could see us losing$24 million, but where would Paramount have possibly spent the other 16 million? Oh, yeah. Okay, the timing here is noteworthy, David, because CBS's owner, Paramount, settled a case with President Trump earlier this month and paid$16 million to what the media company says will go to Trump's future presidential library. What are the important details to know about the timing of this settlement?

8:58Well, at times, you know, as a journalist, you do your best to do your reporting and you also set things up along a chronological sequence to see what makes sense. Things often fit in in a sequence that helps drive you towards a greater understanding. In the moment, I will say in talking to people at CBS corporately, they will tell you, you know, we really are losing money in this realm. And, you know, other you've seen other networks make significant cuts in the late night sphere as well to, you know, different nights of the week or cutting bands or other elements to save costs because it's hard, even though these are signature shows in many ways.

9:35On the other hand, there is this$8 billion transaction through which Skydance, a studio that's essentially controlled by the Ellison family, which are essentially backers of the president, Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, ultimately controls Skydance. And he and his son are set to acquire the controlling interest of Paramount Global, the parent company, to CBS in a deal that has to be approved by Trump's regulators. Trump's chief broadcast regulator, Brendan Carr, the head of the Federal Communications Commission, opened a formal investigative review of CBS and its member stations for the editing that CBS did on the interview of then-Vice President Kamala Harris that led then-private citizen Trump to sue CBS last year, a case that would seem as deeply flimsy, but it did lead, as Colbert jokingly referred to, to that$16 million payment.

10:31Why? Well, corporate executives concluded, and there's no doubt about this, that it was needed to clear the tracks or grease the skids, whatever imagery you'd like, to try to make sure that this transaction gets approved in a timely way. Colbert is, without question, the strongest and most critical voice on CBS against Trump. And for him to be announced to be leaving does essentially skydance a favor at a time it's lobbying the FCC on this acquisition. Well, lots more to follow. That's David Folkenflick. He's a media correspondent for NPR. David, thanks. It's always great to have you on. You bet.

11:08This program comes to you from WAMU, part of American University in Washington, distributed by NPR. I'm Jen White. Thanks for listening. Let's talk more soon. This is 1A.

11:25Thank you.