Free Republic

While all presidents tussle with the press, President Donald Trump has taken things to another level at the beginning of his second term. Trump, still in his first 100 days in office, has kicked the historic Associated Press out of the Oval Office and off of Air Force One, seized control of the White House press pool rotation to bring in friendly outlets, and now may take over coveted seating assignments in the Brady Press Briefing Room. All three moves generated howls of outrage from the White House Correspondents' Association, an 800-member group that previously self-policed access. "The White House...

The White House Correspondents’ Association on Monday pushed back against the White House’s plans to exert control over the briefing room seating assignments for journalists. In an email to members, the association — which is made up of an independent group of journalists covering the Trump administration — said it was aware of the reported efforts from the White House to take over the briefing room’s organization chart. The seating has long been set by WHCA. “If the White House pushes forward, it will become even more clear that the administration is seeking to cynically seize control of the system...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The executive order directed at one of the country’s most prestigious law firms followed a well-worn playbook as President Donald Trump roared down the road to retribution. Reaching beyond government, Trump has set out to impose his will across a broad swath of American life, from individuals who have drawn his ire to institutions known for their own flexes of power and intimidation. Which is how the Paul Weiss, a storied New York law firm that since its 1875 birth has advanced the cause of civil rights, shepherded the legal affairs of corporate power brokers and grown...

The Los Angeles Times has delivered another round of layoffs with the outlet’s business side slashed just weeks after 40 newsroom employees accepted buyouts. The Wrap reports the full count isn’t known, citing Oliver Darcy that dozens of employees across the company’s operations and communications sections were let go this week, including Vice President of Communications Hillary Manning. Representatives for the Los Angeles Times didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from TheWrap.

ABC News staffers are bracing for imminent layoffs while the division will restructure its programming including the merging of its “20/20” and “Nightline” programs and the consolidation of its “Good Morning America” productions, according to reports. The Walt Disney Co. is set to lay off around 200 people from its ABC News Group division as well as its Disney Entertainment Networks unit — a move that constitutes cutting some 6% of the combined staff of the two units, according to the Wall Street Journal. Almin Karamehmedovic, president of ABC News, circulated a memo to employees on Wednesday morning confirming the...

Elon Musk’s cost-cutting and fraud-finding apparatus, the Department of Government Efficiency, came out swinging in recent days. The result? Two stunning strikeouts. A series of announcements by DOGE as well as claims by Musk and President Donald Trump about the agency’s efforts have crumbled under scrutiny even as they’re broadly repeated by conservative pundits, sympathetic media and the White House. Two of the most notable claims — around Social Security fraud and $8 billion savings found in a Department of Homeland Security contract — have been debunked. Meanwhile, Trump’s agenda is set to add to the federal government’s deficit well...

The New York Times wrote a few days ago, “President Biden is bequeathing his successor a nation that by many measures is in good shape, even if voters remain unconvinced.” Just how good are things? Here’s how the Times described the state of the economy:For the first time since that transition 24 years ago, there will be no American troops at war overseas on Inauguration Day. New data reported in the past few days indicate that murders are way down, illegal immigration at the southern border has fallen even below where it was when Mr. Trump left office and roaring...

The Washington Post began laying off a chunk of its workforce on Tuesday, cutting figures on the business side of the company. The cuts did not affect the newsroom. About 4% of the company, or less than 100 people, will be laid off across its business divisions, Fox News Digital has learned. The layoffs, beginning Tuesday, were first reported by the New York Times. "The Washington Post is continuing its transformation to meet the needs of the industry, build a more sustainable future and reach audiences where they are," a Post spokesperson said. "Changes across our business functions are all...

White House reporters are already “exhausted” with President-elect Donald Trump’s second term before it even starts, members of the press corps told Vanity Fair on Wednesday. In the article, titled “Reporters Brace for the Frenzy of a Second Trump White House,” New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker said, “Anybody who went through it the last time remembers how nonstop it was.” “It ends up kind of becoming all-consuming and taking over your life. It wears you down,” he lamented

Axios CEO Jim VandeHei inspired and energized a National Press Club gala with a passionate, ad-libbed defense of free and fearless reporting, warning that "everything we do is under fire." "I hate this damn debate about: Oh, we don't need the media," he said Thursday night as he and co-founder Mike Allen accepted the Fourth Estate Award for lifetime achievement. "It's not true." What they're saying: "I love this country," Jim added. "I'm a beneficiary of this country. Some dipsh*t from Wisconsin can come and start two companies, be up here, win an award." SNIP

The Washington Post used to be one of the best gigs in journalism. No longer. In a business where it generally sucks to be an employee (except for the NY Post, of course), the “WaPo,” as it is known in journalism circles, has really descended into the abyss, On The Money has learned. Top reporters want out of what they see as crappy new work conditions and possibly more layoffs coming. It’s a shame, of course. The paper and its journalists — think Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein and their dogged pursuit of Watergate — set the gold standard for...

Heading into a second term, New Yorker editor David Remnick says Donald Trump's anger "has been never so intense as it's been against the press." The president-elect has referred to the news media as the "Enemy of the American people," has threatened retribution against outlets that have covered him negatively and has suggested that that NBC, CBS and ABC should have their licenses revoked.Marty Baron, the former executive editor of the Washington Post, says he expects the incoming administration "to go after the press in every conceivable way ... [using] every tool in the toolbox — and there are a...

That was quick.Donald Trump is planting the seeds of his own political demise. The corrupt, incompetent and extremist men and women he’s appointing to many of the most critical posts in his cabinet are direct threats to the well-being of the country, but they’re also political threats to Trump and to his populist allies.To understand why, it’s important to remember a cardinal reality about Trump’s political career. He has now won two general elections when he was the only alternative to an unsatisfactory status quo, and he lost the one when he was the unsatisfactory status quo. If he can’t...

Lots of articles on how MSNBC's audience has completely collapsed -- disappeared -- once Kamala lost and the got disillusioned, but the full extent is shocking. Their prime-time shows can't even get 75k people watching in the key demo (18-54). Weekend shows don't even get 30k!

The trust and prestige that took prior generations of journalists decades to earn have been thrown away in just a few years by incompetents and partisans. CBS’s iconic 60 Minutes has had plenty of scandals and embarrassments in its long 57-year history, most notably the fake-but-accurate Dan Rather mess. Yet never has it found itself in greater disrepute than in 2024. Donald Trump, for good reason, recently declined to join 60 Minutes for its traditional election-year in-depth interviews of the two presidential candidates. Why? Last time he consented in 2020, anchor and interviewer Leslie Stahl attacked Trump’s accurate assertion that...

Former President Donald Trump is accusing 60 Minutes of deceitful editing of our Oct. 7 interview with Vice President Kamala Harris. That is false. 60 Minutes gave an excerpt of our interview to Face the Nation that used a longer section of her answer than that on 60 Minutes. Same question. Same answer. But a different portion of the response. When we edit any interview, whether a politician, an athlete, or movie star, we strive to be clear, accurate and on point. The portion of her answer on 60 Minutes was more succinct, which allows time for other subjects in...

Neither Democratic Party elites nor their establishment-media minions have any idea how insufferable a majority of men find them. Sunday on CNN, conservative commentator Scott Jennings tried to explain why, after years of foolishly alienating working-class American men, Vice President Kamala Harris and her fellow Democrats astonishingly lame recent efforts to woo male voters will fall flat. CNN’s pro-Harris panelists, however, seemed not only uninterested in Jennings’s explanation but downright triggered by it. ... A lot lot of men think Democrats care more about dudes who want to become women than dudes who just wanna be dudes,” Jennings said. At...

“The Harris-Biden administration says they don’t have any money [for hurricane relief]. … They spent it all on illegal migrants. … They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them.” Trump has been trying to weaponize the Hurricane Helene relief efforts, accusing the Biden administration of failing to provide adequate assistance. As part of his critique, he claims there is no money available for hurricane relief because it was spent already to handle the surge of migrants at the...

hile Donald Trump made baseless, dangerous claims that immigrants in Ohio were eating people’s pets in front of millions of viewers at Tuesday night’s presidential debate, Johnson Salomon, a Haitian man who moved to Springfield in 2020, was watching cartoons with his kids before putting them to bed. He got a text from a friend telling him to turn on the debate. When he saw the headlines about what the former president and Republican nominee in November’s election had said, he was in total shock. “This was a false claim. I couldn’t believe that such a high official could make...

The Musk-Trump interview was a conversation between two businessmen who understand government regulations better than most politicians or media lapdogs do. It was huge, or whatever other adjective explains a two-hour conversation over the internet. The Harris-Walz team, or the ones who have not sat down with anyone, are furious that Donald Trump had a conversation with Elon Musk. It came about 24 hours after Mr. Vance made the Sunday show rounds. One team is talking and the other isn’t. Hello media! Let’s check out one reaction in particular: Axios’ @sarafischer: ‘@elonmusk will let Donald Trump speak all of the...