How might Trump's second term affect the free press?

President-elect Donald Trump pledged throughout his campaign that he'd go after those he viewed as his "enemies" if elected; this largely included members of the media and news industry. And with Trump moving back into the White House in less than a month, it appears that he is planning to do just that.

Even before beginning his second term, a pair of high-profile cases have highlighted Trump's animosity toward the media. The first came when ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit with Trump for $15 million. The former president sued the network for claiming that he had been found civilly liable for raping E. Jean Carroll; Trump was found liable for sexual assault, but not rape. Trump is also suing pollster J. Ann Selzer and The Des Moines Register for a Nov. 2 poll showing Kamala Harris up by three points in Iowa, claiming this amounted to "election interference." Trump ultimately won Iowa by double digits.

Many have criticized ABC News for settling with Trump, calling it a form of capitulation, and most experts agree that the lawsuit against Selzer and the Register is without merit. However, these circumstances highlight what is likely to be an ongoing battle between Trump and the media over the next four years.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What did the commentators say?

Many analysts say they are seeing deference toward Trump by the media, which could "embolden him to escalate his use of private civil litigation against his media critics when he returns to power next month," said Josh Gerstein at Politico. This would represent an unprecedented conflict between the White House and the media, as "no modern president — including Trump in his first term — has made a habit of personally suing the media while in the Oval Office." Among the "arrows in Trump's legal quiver is the defamation lawsuit — a type of civil claim in which publishers can be ordered to pay eye-popping sums if a court finds that they knowingly lied."

Lawsuits like this are likely the main way Trump will attempt to quash negative coverage of him in the press. However, most are "not going to get past summary judgment" and "are going to be thrown out like that," said Joe Scarborough on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." It is "extremely troubling," David Schulz, director of the Media Freedom & Information Access Clinic at Yale Law School, said to Politico. Lawsuits from the president-elect, whether won or lost, are "going to fuel the perception that the media is unfair to Trump and to incentivize more litigation — and more baseless litigation."

The lawsuits are likely to continue even if Trump keeps losing them. It is "clear that Trump is waging war on the press," and his lawsuits are "not so much geared toward winning as much as threatening," University of Iowa law professor Samantha Barbas said to The New York Times.

Part of the leverage Trump has "recognized is that most major media properties are tied to some larger fortune," said Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic. Many of these businesses, like Disney (which owns ABC News), can "benefit from government cooperation and can be harmed by unfavorable policy choices." This "makes his strongman threats exceedingly credible."

What next?

These types of attacks against the free press might become a regular part of life in Trump's second term. The president-elect has a "history of using libel accusations to quash criticism, and it's something that news organizations will have to contend with going forward," Lisa Zycherman, the deputy legal director at Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said to The Hill.

The United States "has strong protections for the press, so news groups can fulfill their obligation to inform the public, particularly about powerful people and organizations," said Vox. But Trump's lawsuits "could interfere with their ability to do so." However, these same strong protections could mean that Trump is not able to damage the press as much as some pundits believe. Defamation cases "must meet a very high standard in the U.S.; Reporters make mistakes, but that's not enough to warrant a lawsuit against a reporter or news organization."