Trump doesn’t want us to know how bad he’s losing

At 6:47 p.m. tonight, Air Force One lifted off from Palm Beach International Airport, bound for Joint Base Andrews. Minutes into the flight, the President of the United States appeared before the press gaggle, gripping the doorframe to the press cabin as he struggled to regain balance from the plane’s shifting movements. Once steadied, he spent the next 20 minutes and 45 seconds berating reporters and describing the war he started, the one killing American soldiers and driving gas prices through the roof, as “one of those little problems in life.” And that was before he accused media outlets of committing treason.

He started the gaggle by saying, “So we have, uh, a lot of things to talk about, but there’s not much I can say to you about. So one of those little problems in life.” Which said everything and nothing at the same time. There is a war raging that he started barely two weeks ago, and he had a lot to talk about, none of which he could share with the waiting reporters, but also, the war was just a normal little life problem.

Which makes sense that he would feel this way, because he had just spent the day playing golf, drinking Diet Coke, and walking around his resort looking for people to cheer for him. And the night before, according to his official White House schedule, stated “The President participates in a MAGA Inc. Roundtable Dinner” at Mar-a-Lago, before taking a flight back to his day job in Washington, D.C., so it makes sense that he is feeling dismissive. Because he doesn’t actually care.

And it only got worse from there. When reporters pressed him on the war, he didn’t answer. Instead, he attacked. “I didn’t realize this before we started, but Iran is known for a lot of fake news, and they deal with our fake news,” he said. “I actually think it’s pretty criminal because our media companies, who have no credibility whatsoever, are putting out information that they know is false. It’s a very dangerous thing for the country. I think they could be in serious jeopardy.”

He didn’t offer a word about the timing of the war, the objective, how long it might last, or what families waiting at home should expect. Instead, he used the moment to issue a warning to the press, framing their reporting as a national security threat and making clear that unless they covered the war in a way that cast him as strong, decisive, and victorious, they could be in serious jeopardy.

Then came the fundraising question, and it exposed something even uglier. A reporter asked about a fundraising email sent by his PAC, Never Surrender, Inc., that used an official White House photo from the dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base on March 7. In that photo, Trump is saluting the flag-draped coffin of one of six American soldiers killed in an Iranian drone strike in Kuwait. He’s wearing a white “USA” baseball hat at a military funeral. The email promoted something called a “National Security Briefing Membership” and promised donors access to Trump’s “private national security briefings,” with links throughout urging people to “CLAIM YOUR SPOT” by donating.

When the reporter asked if he thought the email was appropriate, Trump said, “I do.” Then he said, “I didn’t see it. Somebody puts it out there.” He approved it and denied seeing it in the same sentence. And the question no one is asking loudly enough is this: why is a sitting president who cannot run again still operating a super PAC? Why is MAGA Inc. still fundraising? Where is this money going? Who benefits from a “National Security Briefing Membership” that promises donors inside access to intelligence? And is it legal to sell what sounds an awful lot like classified information to the highest bidder?

But the worst moment on that plane came when a reporter from ABC News, a woman, tried to do what every journalist is supposed to do. She asked for a comment on the six dead soldiers. Trump’s response was not to honor them or to acknowledge their sacrifice. It was to ask, “Who are you with?” When she said ABC, he unloaded: “One of the worst, most fake, most corrupt... I think it’s maybe the most corrupt news organization on the planet. I think they’re terrible.” She tried again. “Can you give a comment on the dead soldiers?” He shut her down saying: “I don’t want any more from ABC.” Then he pointed to a male reporter and said, “You’re much better.” The reporter replied, “Thank you, sir.” And just like that, six American soldiers killed in Trump’s War went unacknowledged by the man who sent them there. A woman asked about their deaths and was silenced. A man was told he was better for not asking. And he thanked the president for saying so.

And the same ABC reporter wasn’t done. She tried again, this time asking about the 5,000 marines and sailors being deployed. Trump put his finger to his lips and said, “Shh,” and continued with “You’re a very obnoxious person.” That’s the President of the United States telling a woman to be quiet for asking about the deployment of American troops. The same woman he had just refused to answer about the six who were already dead. She asked about the fallen. He attacked her. She asked about the living. He silenced her. And no one in that cabin said a word.

And then there was this. When asked about political leadership in Iran after the war, about who might govern a country he has systematically bombed, Trump said: “We have people. Some are dead. But we have some people that we think would be good.” He didn’t say they’d lost some candidates or that they were working on alternatives. He listed the dead ones like they were still viable options. And then he moved on, because in his impaired thinking, dead people could still lead a country.

He also accused Western news organizations of promoting an AI-generated rally of 250,000 people in support of Iran’s leadership, claiming the entire event was fabricated and “never took place.” He repeated it multiple times. He stated it as fact. And then he turned to a reporter named Jeff and pressed him on it directly. “Jeff, do you know that these are fake stories? Did you know that the rally of 250,000 people was supposed to be fake?” he demanded. “You wrote about it. You talked about it. You knew it was fake. It was AI-generated.” Jeff replied, “No, I didn’t know it was fake, sir.” Trump shot back: “You did. You know it.”

Here’s the problem. The rally was real. Credible news organizations, including the Associated Press and Reuters, photographed actual crowds gathering in Tehran in support of the new Supreme Leader. Those photos are real. Those people were real. And no Western news organization appears to have reported a figure of 250,000 or promoted AI-generated imagery of the event. Reuters could not find a single Western report citing that number. Trump invented a story about the media spreading fake content, accused a reporter to his face of knowingly participating in it, and then used that invented story as the foundation for threatening the entire press with treason charges. It doesn’t matter to him whether any of it is true. The point isn’t accuracy. The point is to plant the accusation, repeat it until it feels real, and use it to discredit the people whose job it is to hold him accountable.

That was the gaggle. Twenty minutes and forty-five seconds of a president attacking the press and spreading propaganda.

The level of hypocrisy in this administration is astounding. This is the same White House that, just days after entering the war with Iran, posted a video on its official social media accounts that spliced real footage of missile strikes with clips from the Call of Duty video game, video game footage, inserted into real military operations, presented as a celebration of American firepower in the very war he’s now accusing the press of misrepresenting through fake content. His administration did the very thing he’s now wrongly accusing the press of doing.

And it wasn’t even the first time. Just weeks ago, the White House posted an AI-generated “Make America Great Again” image that ripped off Nintendo’s new Pokémon game so blatantly that the Pokémon Company issued a public rebuke, stating that no permission had been granted and that their mission “is not affiliated with any political viewpoint or agenda.” This is a White House that treats AI-generated propaganda as standard communications strategy. When they were called out earlier this year for posting an AI-altered photo of a civil rights attorney being arrested, the deputy communications director’s official response was: “The memes will continue.” And they have.

So when Trump stands aboard Air Force One and accuses the press of using AI disinformation, he’s not identifying a threat; he’s laying claim to it. He’s describing his own tactics. He doesn’t want to stop AI propaganda. He wants exclusive rights to it.

And not too long after the gaggle ended, Trump picked up his phone and threatened treason charges against media outlets he doesn’t like with this Truth Social post:

This isn’t just a rant. It’s Trump’s latest plan, his blueprint, if you will, for how he plans to win the midterms.

He is accusing American media companies of working “in close coordination” with Iran. That is the language of enemy collaboration. He is framing journalism, the act of reporting on a war, as an act of war against the United States. And then he says the words: “brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information.” He’s not accusing Iran of treason. He is accusing American reporters, American editors, American news organizations of committing the most serious crime in the Constitution.

He is endorsing the FCC crackdown by name, praising Brendan Carr for “looking at the licenses” of news organizations he calls “Corrupt and Highly Unpatriotic.” That is the President of the United States publicly directing a federal regulatory agency to punish media outlets for their editorial content that doesn’t paint him in a positive enough light. Yesterday, Carr threatened broadcast licenses. Today, Trump called for treason charges and praised him for it. Yesterday was the warning. Today is the escalation. And everything I was worried about yesterday just got worse.

He’s not stopping at news, either. He went after “Late Night Morons,” meaning comedy, entertainment, and anyone on broadcast television who criticizes him. He wants the FCC’s reach to extend to every show, every host, and every voice that doesn’t bend to him. And he ended with “FIRED,” because even now, even as president, he still thinks he’s on a reality television show where he gets to decide who stays and who goes just by yelling at them.

This is a make-or-break moment for the United States. The President of the United States is threatening to charge American journalists with treason for reporting the truth about his war. He is using a federal regulatory agency to threaten the broadcast licenses of news organizations that won’t bend to his demands for sharing propaganda over reality. He is building the legal and rhetorical framework to criminalize the free press. And he is doing it in the open, from Air Force One, while American soldiers die in a war he started and cannot explain.

Under Article III of the Constitution, treason is narrowly defined as levying war against the United States or giving aid and comfort to its enemies. It is the only crime specifically defined in the Constitution, and the Founders defined it that way on purpose. They had lived under a king who used treason charges to silence political opponents, to punish dissent, to crush anyone who questioned his authority. They wrote the First Amendment specifically to prevent what Trump is attempting right now: “Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” The Supreme Court affirmed this in the Pentagon Papers case in 1971, ruling that the government cannot stop the publication of information it finds embarrassing or inconvenient. Reporting the news is not treason. It is the mechanism the Founders built to prevent tyranny. And Trump knows that. He doesn’t care. He’s not making a legal argument. He’s making a threat.

History tells us exactly where this leads. In Putin’s Russia, independent media has been systematically destroyed. Journalists who report the truth are jailed, poisoned, or killed. Anna Politkovskaya was murdered for her reporting on Chechnya. In Erdogan’s Turkey, after 2016, over 150 media outlets were shut down and more journalists were jailed than in any other country in the world. In Hitler’s Germany, one of the first things the Nazi regime did was consolidate control of the press. Goebbels’ Propaganda Ministry controlled every newspaper, radio station, and film studio. The Editors Law of 1933 made editors personally responsible for ensuring all content aligned with the regime’s message. Journalists who resisted were sent to concentration camps.

The pattern is always the same. Threaten. Intimidate. Revoke access. Criminalize dissent. Replace truth with propaganda. And that is exactly what Donald Trump is doing, step by step, while telling us it’s for our own protection from their “fake news”. This is fascism. Plain and simple.

So what do we do? We refuse to let it work. The press must band together. What happened on that plane cannot be treated as business as usual. When one reporter is shut down, the next one asks the same question. And the next one after that. An attack on one journalist is an attack on all of them. And the male reporter who said “Thank you, sir” after Trump silenced his female colleague needs to hear from his peers that silence in that moment was complicity.

Contact your representatives. Every Congress member in your district, first thing tomorrow. Tell them you want them on the record defending the First Amendment. Tell them you want them vocal, visible, and fighting every single day between now and the midterms. And tell them that a president threatening treason charges against the press is not something they get to stay quiet about. Support independent media with paid subscriptions. Not just mine, but as many as you can afford. We have to make sure they are not lost to financial pressure.

I struggled to sleep last night after watching Brendan Carr threaten broadcast licenses, because I knew it wasn’t the end of something. It was the beginning. When an administration is losing a war it can’t justify, when the economy is turning against them and the midterms are getting closer and every honest headline makes things worse, the only move left is to make sure the honest headlines stop. I lay there knowing that what Carr did yesterday was a first step, and that the next one was coming. And then today, everything on that plane, the treason accusations, his Truth Social post, confirmed exactly what I was afraid of.

But my concern is eased a little tonight just seeing the resistance. The ABC reporter on that plane who kept asking questions even knowing she was going to be ridiculed and attacked. The comedians who are using the biggest stages in America to push back. And all of us, still here, doing our parts, still talking about what’s really happening.

Last night, Saturday Night Live cold opened and went directly at Trump over gas prices, the war, and the Epstein connection. James Austin Johnson’s Trump opened with: “The Epstein files!” as the explanation for the war, then admitted his campaign promises were lies: “You might remember me from such campaign promises as lower gas prices and no more wars. Sike! A promise is just a lie that hasn’t happened yet.” Colin Jost’s Pete Hegseth admitted he had no plan: “I’ll tell you the same thing I say when people ask about our plans for Iran: I don’t know.” This is NBC, one of the networks Trump is threatening, pushing back through the biggest comedy stage in America.

And at the Oscars tonight, Kimmel took the stage and went straight at it. He reminded the audience that some countries’ leaders don’t support free speech, then said, “I’m not at liberty to say which. Let’s just leave it at North Korea and CBS.” He took a shot at the Melania documentary: “documentaries where you walk around the White House trying on shoes.” And when the Best Documentary winner was announced, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” Kimmel said Trump would be mad his wife wasn’t nominated. This is the same man who was suspended by ABC last year after Brendan Carr pressured the network. He came back. He’s still swinging. That’s what courage looks like. The pushback is real. It’s growing. And that’s why I still have hope for America. And you should, too.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

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This commentary represents my personal opinions and analysis of matters of public concern, informed by publicly available information. Any references to individuals constitute opinion and commentary protected under the First Amendment.

Picture of the day: I’m feeling thankful that our furry family members don’t have to know about the troubled world beyond the walls of their homes.