Trump's Battles Against the Free Press. Why Can't He Rule Like Authoritarian Despots?

Oct 4, 2026 04:45 PM EDT, Sun

Trump’s jealousy of dictators is showing in his war on the press

“Freedom of Speech” - Marsh Family parody of “Under the Sea” from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”

The president has always envied the way dictators exercise control over every apparatus of their society.

By Jen Psaki

Sept. 25, 2026, 5:19 PM EDT

This is an adapted excerpt from the Sept. 24 episode of “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”

On Thursday morning, journalists from MS NOW, CNN and Politico were granted access to the White House grounds for the first time in days after a judge ordered the Trump administration to reinstate press passes to reporters from those networks. However, later that evening, reporters from MS NOW and CNN were blocked from attending an event at the White House.

Now, what makes this all so on the nose, and maddeningly ridiculous, is that the event those reporters were denied access to was a greeting ceremony that Donald Trump hosted for the leader of a country with a truly reprehensible record on press freedom: China.

Chinese President Xi Jinping was in Washington this week for a three-day state visit. According to Thursday’s print pool report, American and Chinese photographers were separated and brought in for two sprays with the leaders. And during the second spray, Trump made a joke about how the Chinese had the friendliest press corps. That’s right: Trump praised China’s state-run media while actively battling to prevent American media from covering his administration.

For context, the Chinese government has a long history of suppressing independent media outlets and keeping independent press from other countries out of events like this in China. U.S. presidents are supposed to condemn that behavior, even when they’re conducting delicate diplomacy.

In 2016, during a trip to China, President Barack Obama called out the Chinese government for restricting press access.

“We think it’s important that the press have access to the work that we’re doing, that they have the ability to answer questions,” he said. “And we don’t leave our values and ideals behind when we take these trips.”

But Trump apparently does not think it’s important to show authoritarians what a free press looks like; he would rather praise the way those dictators exercise control over the media. In 2019, during a meeting with Vladimir Putin, Trump said the Russian president didn’t have to worry about “fake news” in his country, where dozens of journalists have been killed or have died under suspicious circumstances.

Trump has always envied the way dictators exercise control over every apparatus of their society. In 2018 he praised the way the people of North Korea “sit up at attention” for dictator Kim Jong Un. “I want my people to do the same,” he said.

Trump genuinely wishes he could have the kind of control over the media that those dictators have. He wants the American press to operate the way that state-run media outlets operate in those countries.

And over the past week, he finally tried to make that dream a reality. But the good news is, it hasn’t exactly worked the way he hoped it would.

First, his White House tried to stand up its own version of state media, promoting something it called Trump TV, with blaring social media hype videos that featured a bunch of old TV clips and bad house music.

But so far, Trump TV, has been a disaster. The Daily Beast reported that its viewership started at around just 8,500 streamers and has since dropped as low as 427 viewers. That’s a tiny fraction of the millions of people who tune in to broadcast and cable news channels.

On top of all of that, there were the laughable arguments that Trump’s lawyers made in court to try to retroactively justify his ban on the media, arguments that drew skepticism from the judge and ultimately led to the president’s biggest failure so far: when the administration was forced to let journalists from our network and the two other banned media entities back onto the White House grounds.

That all may explain why they appear to be looking for ways to continue to restrict press access.

But here’s the thing — Trump cannot bend the American press to his will. And no matter how hard he tries, he cannot force it to become the kind of state-run media that we see in authoritarian countries.

Allison Detzel contributed.

Jen Psaki is the host of ”The Briefing with Jen Psaki”

“Freedom of Speech” - Marsh Family parody of “Under the Sea” from Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”

Sep 22, 2025 FAVERSHAM We couldn’t find any lobster costumes, and a whirling freestyle in the middle of a school week was not gonna happen. So - with some extra input from a few media sources to cover instrumental sections - this is our parody rendition of “Under the Sea”, one of our old Disney favourites for its sheer joy and energy. It was composed by Alan Menken (with cracking lyrics by Howard Ashman) for the 1989 animated “The Little Mermaid” and won an Oscar. Of course, the calypso lobster’s forlorn plea for an alternative path falls on deaf ears. Which brings us to free speech.

It’s been a scary time in lots of ways in the US, with the temperature cranked up again by shocking murders and reckless responses, and sadly now the First Amendment (for decades a place of some bipartisan accord) seems to be creaking. As we were working on the arrangement, we learned that Jimmy Kimmel’s show had been reinstated by Disney - which is great news, having loved meeting him in 2020 albeit under bizarre pandemic circumstances - though we gather that much is still unclear about how the matter is going to play out. Here’s hoping that enough uproar is generated that Trump and co. think again about making their predictable/alarming move on limiting freedom of expression.

We’re assuming folk will have enough pointers not to need links, but will keep an eye on comments and can fill in any details!

P.S. Please note: for anyone whose kids watch, Ben forget to put special characters in the swear word at the death of the song, so heads-up on that.

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