Yes, 60 Minutes has behaved badly. No, that’s not a reason to threaten to take CBS off the air. But calling for such actions is a habit for Trump, as I write in the Washington Post today:
In October 2017, during his first year in office, he raised the possibility of challenging broadcast licenses when NBC ran a story he called “pure fiction.” The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, a Trump appointee, noted at the time that the agency could not deny any station a license based on the content of a newscast. (Stations have licenses, by the way, not networks.) Trump reiterated the threat to NBC in September 2023. Last month, he said ABC should lose its license too, because of how its anchors moderated his debate with Harris. . . .
Trump has told us repeatedly that he thinks the press should have considerably less leeway to report without governmental supervision. We ought to take him seriously. Trust in the press might be at a low point, but that missing trust should not be placed in government censors. The freedom of the press is not in the Constitution just to benefit the press.






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