Trump also threatened legal and regulatory retribution against media companies. On the 2016 campaign trail, he vowed to “open up our libel laws” so public figures like him could sue news organizations more easily politico.com . “When The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace… we can sue them and win money… We’re going to have people sue you like you’ve never got sued before,” Trump told a rally, explicitly promising to weaken press protections established by New York Times v. Sullivan politico.com politico.com . As president, he repeatedly floated the idea of making it easier to sue the media for defamation. While he did not succeed in changing libel law (libel standards are set by the courts and largely beyond a president’s unilateral control), Trump’s rhetoric emboldened a flurry of defamation lawsuits intended to harass or silence news outlets. In 2020, his campaign filed libel suits against major papers including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN over critical opinion columns firstamendmentwatch.org . These suits strained credulity – one federal judge dismissed the claims outright in early 2023 for failure to show any actual malice firstamendmentwatch.org firstamendmentwatch.org . Legal experts noted the campaign’s arguments were “foolhardy” and had little chance of success firstamendmentwatch.org . The real purpose, observers suggested, was to intimidate journalists and create a chilling effect. Trump’s litigious posture continued after his presidency as well: he sued CNN in 2022 for its coverage of his election falsehoods, and even as late as 2024 he was reportedly “suing the Des Moines Register for inaccurately forecasting” an election result firstamendment.mtsu.edu . No modern U.S. political figure has used the courts as blatantly to bully the press.
Beyond lawsuits, Trump frequently leveraged the powers of his office to retaliate against media he disliked. In one striking episode, he threatened to have the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) challenge broadcast licenses for major networks. The provocation came after NBC News ran a report in October 2017 that Trump’s Secretary of State had called him a “moron” and that Trump wanted a massive increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Enraged, the President tweeted: “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!” reuters.com . He went further the same day, suggesting “network news has become so partisan, distorted and fake that licenses must be challenged and, if appropriate, revoked” reuters.com . Coming from the nation’s chief executive, those words carried weight despite the legal hurdles. Industry leaders and free-speech advocates reacted with alarm. The head of the National Association of Broadcasters rebuked Trump, saying “it is contrary to this fundamental right for any government official to threaten the revocation of an FCC license simply because of a disagreement with the reporting” reuters.com . Even Trump’s own FCC Chairman, Ajit Pai, indirectly pushed back, emphasizing the FCC would uphold the First Amendment and “not how it works” regarding pulling licenses reuters.com reuters.com . Nonetheless, the threat alone was seen as damaging. Members of Congress warned that even “this threat alone could intimidate the press and lead to skewed and unfair reporting” reuters.com . In an Oval Office meeting that week, Trump lamented it was “frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write” reuters.com – a statement utterly at odds with American constitutional principles. While no TV licenses were actually yanked (the FCC doesn’t license networks per se, and individual station licenses are renewed only on set cycles reuters.com ), Trump’s willingness to publicly encourage punitive regulation against news outlets was unprecedented in modern times. It earned comparisons to President Nixon, who privately plotted to use the FCC against The Washington Post during Watergate reuters.com . As one media law professor observed, Trump’s behavior was “Nixon on steroids” in its brazenness cpj.org .