President Donald Trump launched some of his harshest attacks yet on the media on Friday, using a speech at the Department of Justice to baselessly accuse outlets including CNN of illegal and corrupt behavior.
In his Friday speech, Trump praised Florida district court Judge Aileen Cannon, whom he appointed in 2020 and who sided with him in January, blocking the DOJ from sharing a report on Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents with members of Congress.
But Trump claimed news publishers had gone after Cannon because of the January ruling, alleging “they do it all the time with judges” and that they “will write whatever these people say,” without offering proof.
“The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and MSDNC, and the fake news, CNN and ABC, CBS and NBC, they’ll write whatever they say,” Trump said. “And what do you do to get rid of it? You convict Trump.”
“It’s totally illegal what they do,” Trump continued, addressing DOJ employees. “I just hope you can all watch for it, but it’s totally illegal.”
While Trump did not immediately clarify who “they” are, he later claimed that CNN and MSNBC are “political arms of the Democrat Party.”
“In my opinion, they’re really corrupt,” Trump said.
CNN and MSNBC declined to comment.
Trump began his speech on Friday by praising the Justice Department’s legacy of taking on organized crime, saying that, under his administration, the agency would return to its roots of hunting down “killers, kingpins and spies,” tracking down “terrorists and traitors,” and tearing down “corrupt political machines all across America.”
The president’s desire to weaponize the Justice Department stems from his belief that the Biden administration used the agency against him. In his speech, he claimed that “they weaponized the vast powers of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to try and thwart the will of the American people.”
But Trump’s claims, as reports have already pointed out, are bogus. The president’s two federal indictments were brought by Jack Smith, a special counsel appointed in November 2022 by then-Attorney General Merrick Garland. While Garland was appointed by President Joe Biden, that does not prove that Biden was in any way involved in the prosecution or that the former president personally ordered the indictments.
Yet in citing examples of the DOJ’s alleged weaponization against Americans, Trump only brought up issues that affected him directly and popular far-right conspiracy theories, many of which were misleading or have been outright debunked.
Trump’s speech built on and expanded his history of labeling the press an enemy of the people and the state.
But what he really means is that news organizations whose reporting he dislikes may face the wrath of a Justice Department weaponized by the president.
That Trump is willing to go after news organizations he dislikes should come as no surprise. The president is currently engaged in a civil lawsuit against the Pulitzer Board over its defending the awarding of the 2018 National Reporting Prize to the Washington Post and the New York Times over their coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 election and its alleged connections to the Trump campaign. In December, ABC News settled a defamation case from Trump for $15 million. And Paramount Global, which owns CBS News, is still fending off a Trump lawsuit over its “60 Minutes” sit-down with former Vice President Kamala Harris.
This is to say nothing of the president’s indefinite ban of the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One over the wire service’s continued use of the term “Gulf of Mexico.”
Certain agencies under the Trump administration have also signaled that they intend to terminate their subscriptions with mainstream outlets the president dislikes. In February, press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the White House would end $8 million in Politico Pro subscriptions in response to a far-right conspiracy theory. And, on Friday, NPR reported that the US Agency for Global Media had canceled its AP and AFP contracts, noting that it would also allow its Reuters contract to lapse on March 31.
But the president’s Friday speech made clear these are not individual decisions from the White House; they are part of a broader attack on the media — one Trump clearly plans to maintain and even intensify.
