F*ck Silence

by Joe Walsh

  Example One: Barring the Media

  The key test of defending the First Amendment is doing it for the people you disagree with. That’s the case for me with CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta and Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank.

  Acosta’s Q-and-A exchanges with President Trump are often infamous. He’s become a celebrity journalist, the type of reporter who traffics attention (1.34 million Twitter followers!) and winds up on late-night TV, all because of his combativeness with a White House that—granted—invites it. In November 2018, he made a fool of himself during a press conference, refusing to pass the microphone to other journalists in the room long after Trump had moved on from him. The whole episode was a fiasco—so much so that the president stepped away from the podium to collect himself before pointing at Acosta and saying, “I’ll tell you what, CNN should be ashamed of itself, having you working for them. You are a rude, terrible person.” It was a bad moment for the press. It was a bad moment for Trump, too, who should be above embarrassing a journalist in front of his colleagues. There were no winners. But look—media combat is the norm for this White House, and no one would’ve been the lesser if both parties had just moved on from the confrontation.

  Of course, Trump—for whom no slight is ever too small—couldn’t let it go. Instead, the administration revoked Acosta’s White House press credentials. The way it justified doing so was blood boiling: White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders promoted a deceptively edited video of the Trump-Acosta exchange that made it seem as though Acosta had pushed away a White House intern who was trying to seize the mic from him. The source of the video made it all the more infuriating: it had been created by a contributor to InfoWars, the batshit-crazy, alt-right, alt-reality, conspiracy-theorizing website run by lunatic Alex Jones.8

  Milbank’s circumstances weren’t nearly as zany. He didn’t have a heated encounter with a White House official or anything. He just checked his email one day in May 2019, and as he wrote, he saw a message “informing me that Trump’s press office had revoked my White House credential.” He continued:

  I’m not the only one. I was part of a mass purge of “hard pass” holders after the White House implemented a new standard that designated as unqualified almost the entire White House press corps, including all seven of The Post’s White House correspondents. White House officials then chose which journalists would be granted “exceptions.” It did this over objections from news organizations and the White House Correspondents’ Association.

  The Post requested exceptions for its seven White House reporters and for me, saying that this access is essential to our work (in my case, I often write “sketches” describing the White House scene). The White House press office granted exceptions to the other seven, but not to me. I strongly suspect it’s because I’m a Trump critic. The move is perfectly in line with Trump’s banning of certain news organizations, including The Post, from his campaign events and his threats to revoke White House credentials of journalists he doesn’t like.9

  Those “threats” were in reference to Trump’s comment that “It could be others also” in the press who have their credentials revoked in response to being challenged in ways the administration won’t tolerate.10

  Milbank added this: “[T]here’s something wrong with a president having the power to decide which journalists can cover him.”11 That’s exactly right. In fact, I’ll do him one more: it’s absolute bullshit that a president could exercise this kind of power. Taking away the press passes of journalists Trump doesn’t like is chilling. It’s an attack on the free press. It’s the stuff of dictators. And it should be opposed by everyone, including Americans who support Trump’s government policies.

  I don’t have to like Acosta’s approach to his work or Milbank’s takes on politics to think that the White House’s blocking their access to power is unacceptable. For one, if Trump thinks he’s a big, bad bully and he wants his administration to project an image of big, bad bullies, then by God he should be able to withstand criticism by Jim stinking Acosta or a withering column by the likes of Milbank. This president is no student of history, but you think at one point he would’ve heard the saying, “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Teddy Roosevelt did not include at the end of that quote, “and swing it at whoever you can, whenever you can.” But the way I’m protesting the administration’s retribution here is all about what I think of its weenie-ass attitude. The far more important argument against it is rooted in the Constitution. And so far, the federal courts have borne that argument out. A judge ordered Acosta’s press pass temporarily restored less than ten days after the White House took it away.12 The administration then backed off and permitted Acosta to resume his normal work. Milbank is a member of PEN American Center, the nonprofit advocacy group for writing professionals that filed a First Amendment suit against Trump in US district court.

  Of course, I made a point of highlighting these two members of the DC press as individuals I disagree with for one reason or another—and whose rights are just the same as those of the people I do agree with. But other reporters are facing and fighting this same crackdown, too. One of them is Brian Karem, Playboy’s White House correspondent (yes, it has one), whose press credentials were revoked last year after he had a brief spat with one of Trump’s sycophants in the Rose Garden.13 Less than two months later, a judge reversed the White House’s decision.14 If you’re seeing the makings of a pattern, it’s not just you—courts are finding that the Trump administration’s retaliation against journalists is against the law. And just so no one thinks that this is another case of “activist” judges, well . . . the judge in Acosta’s case was appointed by President Obama, and the judge in Karem’s case was appointed by no one other than Donald J. Trump.

  Example Two: Boycotting CNN

  Trump’s clashes with Acosta are indicative of a problem he has with CNN in general. On his fifth day in office, he congratulated Fox News for being a TV ratings monster and noted that its inauguration ratings had been “many times higher than FAKE NEWS @CNN.”15 He’s called the network “#FraudNewsCNN,” too,16 suggested that its slogan should be “CNN, THE LEAST TRUSTED NAME IN NEWS,”17 and concluded that it’s “dead.”18 He occasionally retweets images or videos created by Trump fanboys that depict the CNN logo in some violent state, such as a picture showing him seated with his legs crossed and “CNN” in the middle of a blood spatter on the bottom of his shoe.19 It’s pathologic, unhealthy behavior, and I’ll take this moment to plug the website http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com, which organizes Trump’s tweets by keyword; Americans should visit it to learn more about how much of an unpresidential whack job he is. (There’s no avoiding it. It’s in the public eye.)

  As far as a public official’s antagonism toward a news outlet is just a matter of personal preference, it’s no big deal. All politicians have that kind of skepticism. I’m a Tea Party–era conservative: I know well that the New York Times has a leftist bias and that MSNBC despises Trump. I think CNN leans left but does a pretty good job of playing it fair and balanced with its actual reporting, as opposed to its commentary. These perspectives can affect how much I pay attention to those sources and how reliable I feel they are when I do. It’s fine for any public figure to make these sorts of judgments—from Democrats who loathe Fox News to Trump himself. But Trump’s open hostility toward CNN, in particular, is potentially dangerous—don’t tell me that a cult figure like him promoting a video of a train “hitting” the CNN logo20 or another one of him “punching” the logo21 is harmless, when it fits broader patterns of his declaring journalists “enemies” even as journalists the world over are subjected to violent threats and even death.22 We just can’t be that naive or dismissive. Even beyond the way this shameful conduct poisons our society, it’s a sign that Trump could be open to more purposeful action than only rhetoric. Sure enough, the president isn’t engaged only in a war of words with Jim Acosta and his employer but in a war of actions with potential consequ
ences for the network. This specific war is one-sided: Trump’s the president, a position with unique cultural influence and government authority, and CNN is a private entity, albeit a large one.

  He’s used that influence and authority to not-so-subtly call for a boycott of the network’s parent company, to force editorial “changes” at the news channel. He tweeted in June 2019, “I believe that if people stoped [sic] using or subscribing to @ATT, they would be forced to make big changes at @CNN, which is dying in the ratings anyway. It is so unfair with such bad, Fake News! Why wouldn’t they act. When the World watches @CNN, it gets a false picture of USA. Sad!”23 This is extraordinary on its face. Strip the names of the businesses from the tweet, and think about what it says: it’s the chief officer of the federal government using his perch to bully a business he disfavors and threaten it with financial harm. Remember earlier in the book when I quoted Sean Spicer on inauguration day? “There’s been a lot of talk in the media about the responsibility to hold Donald Trump accountable. And I’m here to tell you that it goes two ways,” he said.24 Can’t say he didn’t warn us.

  As galling as Trump’s boycott suggestion was, there’s evidence that he may have been even more intentional in using his official powers as president against CNN. Late in the 2016 campaign, Trump pledged that his Department of Justice would reject a proposed merger between Time Warner—CNN’s old owner—and AT&T. He even pointed out the Time Warner–CNN relationship when he made his statement: “As an example of the power structure I’m fighting, AT&T is buying Time Warner and thus CNN, a deal we will not approve in my administration because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.”25 Committing to do something like that is inappropriate. DOJ has approval power over corporate mergers, and its decisions in cases such as Time Warner–AT&T should be based on the facts and its own legal judgment alone. That’s because it’s an independent law enforcement agency—not the president’s personal law firm.

  Since Trump had so obviously tipped his hand during the campaign, it was worth keeping track of how the new administration would approach the merger. In November 2017, the Justice Department did file a lawsuit against it.26 And although the administration’s legal challenge failed and the merger was ultimately allowed to go through, what happened in the roughly year and a half in between is of some note. Here’s one significant record, via Jane Mayer of The New Yorker:

  Although Presidents have traditionally avoided expressing opinions about legal matters pending before the judicial branch, Trump has bluntly criticized the plan. The day after the Justice Department filed suit to stop it, he declared the proposed merger “not good for the country.” Trump also claimed that he was “not going to get involved,” and the Justice Department has repeatedly assured the public that he hasn’t done so.

  However, in the late summer of 2017, a few months before the Justice Department filed suit, Trump ordered Gary Cohn, then the director of the National Economic Council, to pressure the Justice Department to intervene. According to a well-informed source, Trump called Cohn into the Oval Office along with John Kelly, who had just become the chief of staff, and said in exasperation to Kelly, “I’ve been telling Cohn to get this lawsuit filed and nothing’s happened! I’ve mentioned it fifty times. And nothing’s happened. I want to make sure it’s filed. I want that deal blocked!”

  . . . According to the source, as Cohn walked out of the meeting he told Kelly, “Don’t you fucking dare call the Justice Department. We are not going to do business that way.”27

  So did it happen? Mayer added that Cohn declined to comment, Kelly didn’t respond to inquiries, and a former White House official “confirmed that Trump often ‘vented’ in ‘frustration’ about wanting to block the A.T.&T.–Time Warner merger,” not understanding “the nuances of antitrust law or policy.”28 The House Judiciary Committee wanted to learn more, so in March 2019 it asked the White House to turn over records related to the merger. The White House denied the request.29 So what we’re left with is a lot of smoke, no hard proof of fire, and a lot of fair questions about a president who just doesn’t appreciate the importance of law enforcement being free of political interference. Oh, and an ongoing war against CNN: as Reuters reported on October 18, 2019, “Lawyers for U.S. President Donald Trump and his re-election campaign have threatened in a letter to sue CNN for what they said was the network falsely advertising itself as a news organization, calling on executives to first discuss an ‘appropriate resolution’ to the matter that would include a ‘substantial’ payment to cover damages.”30

  Example Three: Regulating Speech in Silicon Valley

  Now, here’s something funny. The same Donald Trump who thinks it’s okay for him to crack down on speech he doesn’t like—by shutting off press access to his administration and directly attacking news organizations with words and official acts—doesn’t think it’s okay for social media companies to crack down on speech that they don’t want on their platforms. He and many of his allies in right-wing, digital-based media have complained that Trump-sympathetic users have been kicked off the likes of Facebook and Twitter in an illegal display of political prejudice. “Twitter should let the banned Conservative Voices back onto their platform, without restriction. It’s called Freedom of Speech, remember,” he tweeted in June 2019.31

  By that date, here are some “Conservative Voices” that Twitter had removed in the previous year-plus: former Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke, whose account was temporarily suspended after he tweeted, “When LYING LIB MEDIA makes up FAKE NEWS to smear me, the ANTIDOTE is to go right at them. . . . Punch them in the nose & MAKE THEM TASTE THEIR OWN BLOOD”;32 Alex Jones, whose personal account and InfoWars account were taken down permanently after repeated violations of Twitter’s terms of use; Gavin McInnes, the founder of the violent alt-right group Proud Boys, whose own account and those of other Proud Boys were banned “for violating our policy prohibiting violent extremist groups,” a Twitter spokesperson said;33 the actor James Woods, who was locked out of his account for a time after creating an election-related hoax that Twitter identified as violating its terms of service;34 the far-right activist Laura Loomer, who said her account was suspended after posting a tweet about Representative Ilhan Omar in violation of Twitter’s hateful-conduct policy;35 and Jacob Wohl, the infamous conspiracy theorist and hoaxer whose flattery of Trump is so absurd that I could only describe it with R-rated adjectives.36

  These are some unsavory characters—wackos, morons, and instigators all. In Twitter’s view, they don’t belong on its platform. While I don’t necessarily agree—my view of free speech is pretty expansive and my tolerance for speech I find deplorable is pretty high—I don’t believe that Twitter’s judgment and the way it acted on that judgment is illegal. Here’s why: This is a case of private individuals using a private media company as their forum. It’s not a case of public officials denying individual speech in some public space.

  This is what Trump and his people don’t get about the First Amendment; in fact, it’s what they get entirely backward about it. The First Amendment applies to the government—not a social media platform. The First Amendment’s language does not read, “No institution, public or private, shall abridge a person’s speech.” If it did, you know what else arguably could be illegal besides banning idiots from Twitter? A newspaper rejecting an op-ed submission. A company spokesperson shutting down a press conference. “But I have a right to be heard!” the op-ed writer or the reporter shouting a question would say—and by this new stupid definition of “free speech,” they’d have a claim. But in the real world, they have no case. The op-ed writer may have been turned down, but (1) it’s not because the government told the newspaper not to publish him, (2) the government didn’t deny his ability to write or try to get his voice published in the newspaper, (3) he can take his submission to as many different newspapers as he wants, and—this is the big one—(4) there isn’t anything in law that says a newspaper has to publish him. So I ask my f
ellow conservatives who think Twitter has an obligation to allow the likes of InfoWars to publish on its website: Since when did we start believing that the Constitution’s purpose was to force others to do what we want them to do? Isn’t that the kind of nanny-statism we’ve denounced all our lives? Or has the equation changed because Trump is our nanny and we want him to fill our bottles with liberal tears?

  As of summer 2019, the Trump administration was considering an executive order that would require the FCC “to develop new regulations clarifying how and when the law protects social media websites when they decide to remove or suppress content on their platforms,” CNN reported, based on a summary of the order its reporter had seen with his own eyes.37 The reason, according to a White House official: “If the Internet is going to be presented as this egalitarian platform and most of Twitter is liberal cesspools of venom, then at least the president wants some fairness in the system.”38 Nah, pal. That’s weak. The internet and Twitter aren’t the same thing. Twitter is like 0.0000000000 . . . 1 percent of the internet. If Twitter doesn’t like your shtick, then take it somewhere else. And if “somewhere else” doesn’t like it, either, consider the possibility that in the marketplace of ideas, your ideas suck.