Look beyond the petty celebrity feuds and you'll see a plan to turn American media companies into MAGA agitprop channels.
President Donald Trump receives Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch and Skydance supporter Larry Ellison in the Oval Office.
(Craig Hudson for The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Last weekend Late night host Seth Meyers has become the latest comedian to draw criticism from our beleaguered president. Donald Trump by then knew he was putting a big, embarrassing, undeniable “L” in the Epstein files. He played all his best cards and nothing worked. Trump officials tried to intimidate Representative Lauren Boebert, a traditional MAGA supporter, by meeting with her in the Situation Room to force her to rescind her vote in favor of releasing the files. Trump began using new nicknames and insults, usually a throwback to Trump. He called Marjorie Taylor Greene, who also broke ranks in supporting the release of the files, “Marjorie Traitor Greene.” During an Air Force One Q&A with the White House press corps: BloombergKatherine Lucy asked about his resistance to releasing the files and he replied: “Quiet, piggy.” Nothing helped. All weekend he lashed out at women who didn't want to intimidate him. Instead, they pressed ahead, forcing humiliating public documentation of his close friendship with the world's most notorious pedophile.
In the midst of this furor, Trump resorted to another favorite tactic: changing the subject. He pursued the comedian, a pastime that proved more favorable to him than his campaign to make his base forget about Jeffrey Epstein. On Saturday afternoon, he addressed Truth Social with this lament: “NBC's Seth Meyers is suffering from a terminal case of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). Last night he was seen in an uncontrollable rage, likely because his 'show' is a ratings disaster. Above all else, Meyers has no talent and NBC should fire him IMMEDIATELY!”
Meyers' crime the night before was simple: he ridiculed Trump. On Friday, Meyers showed an excerpt from the program “GazeA series that explores why so many MAGA supporters have now abandoned Trump. It turns out that MAGA supporters are eager to know more about the Epstein files, and are also outraged by Trump's recent statement that the country needs a high percentage of HB-1 visa holders to maintain a skilled workforce. Trump ran for the presidency as a crusader who would expose elite conspiracies like the one Epstein cultivated, as well as liberate American workers from the globalists who took their jobs out of their control. Meyers emphasized that since Trump avoided releasing the Epstein files, he also gave an interview to Laura Ingraham on Fox News and told her that, uh, actually MAGA should learn to code.
But why single out Seth Meyers? It seems like every comedian on television tells jokes about Epstein. Later that night Saturday Night Live loaded the show with them. Colin Jost said“Trump is like Forrest Gump meeting famous pedophiles.” Here's a hint: Like SNLMeyers Late night owned by NBC Universal, which is owned by Comcast, which announced Friday it plans to bid against the Ellison family and Skydance for Warner Bros. Discovery (VBD).
Trump likes Skydance and quickly approved its proposed buyout of WBD. Trump has many reasons to be a Skydance fan. When Skydance's deal to buy Viacom and Paramount was finalized, Trump extorted $16 million from Viacom-owned CBS News to settle his frivolous lawsuit against 60 minutes for edits made to an interview with his 2024 opponent Kamala Harris. Skydance also named woke-baiting expert Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News, even though his resume doesn't include any television news (or any) reporting. And before all this post-merger pandering to Trump, CBS announced this summer that it was canceling Stephen Colbert's show. Late Show just days after Skydance leader David Ellison met with Trump's FCC chief Brendan Carr. CBS executives said financial issues were the reason for Colbert's cancellation, but if so, why announce it this week?
Skydance has so far made three bids to buy WBD, with Trump giving his latest bid his preliminary blessing. If Skydance acquires WBD, it will also gain control of CNN, the cable news network that Trump has long hated, calling it “the interrupted broadcast disaster known as CNN” The Trump White House has already met with tech billionaire Larry Ellison, the financial progenitor of Skydance, to discuss which CNN reporters should be placed under Skydance ownership. Unsurprisingly, two women top the list. Erin Burnett and Briana Keilar.
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The emergence of Comcast as an alternative contender that could easily compete with Skydance complicates such plans. Trump called Comcast CEO Brian Roberts “shame on broadcasting integrityCNN's transition to Comcast is not the scenario Trump wants.
Larry Ellison has been a Trump supporter for years. Trump trusts him. Beyond Trump's ongoing vendetta against individual journalists and comedians who refuse to cower before him, it is clear that he wants to remake the American media industry in his own image—just as Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban, the autocratic leaders he most admires, controlled the media in their home countries. By consolidating media companies, Trump hopes to use a Putin-style media oligarchy to determine who will report the news and tell the jokes.
Trump made that clear a few days ago when ABC's Mary Bruce asked tough questions of the President and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at a news conference in the Oval Office. “Your Royal Highness, U.S. Intelligence [community] came to the conclusion that you organized the brutal murder of a journalist [Washington Post writer Jamal Khashoggi]. The families of the 9/11 victims are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust you? And the same to you, Mr. President.” Trump sharply rejected Mail murdering a journalist with a callous “stuff happens” and then telling Bruce: “I think the ABC should have its license taken away because your news is so fake and so wrong. And we have a great one.” [FCC] commissioner, chairman, who should pay attention to this because I think when you come in, you're 97 percent negative about Trump. And then Trump wins the election by a landslide. This obviously means your news is not credible.” In Trump's ideal media world, anyone who questioned him would not only be abruptly fired; Entire networks will also lose their licenses.
Brendan Carr gave a pretty clear signal about Meyers' dismissal when he reposted Trump's “Social Truth” to Meyers on X.com. Carr has already proven highly effective in the transition to transforming American media in the style of Orban and Putin. Not only did he personally meet with David Ellison to secure the Skydance deal; he also publicly called on ABC affiliate stations to silence Jimmy Kimmel for a monologue he gave after Charlie Kirk's murder—one that mocked Trump's response to it, not Kirk's. The affiliates obliged, which in turn led ABC's parent company, Disney, to suspend Kimmel's show and leave the question of his return open. (The suspension lasted six days after viewers began canceling their Disney subscriptions in droves.)
Yes, Trump hates comics who make fun of him, but Colbert, Kimmel and Meyers are just comedic collateral damage in Trump's pursuit of his larger goals. Trump's brain simultaneously operates at the smallest and grandest levels of corruption and intrigue. He could have Brendan Carr call Comcast executives privately and let them know what's coming next. Instead, Trump went after Meyers to show that he's always out there punching, and also to remind Comcast of what it's already done with Colbert and Kimmel.
It's easy to get distracted by Trump's feuds with celebrities, but we should never lose sight of Trump's master plan: to push our media world so far to the right that he will never again be asked about his friends who are sexually violent or murderous.
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