Despite anti-media rhetoric, the government is still reading the news
The Trump administration is spending tens of thousands of dollars on paywalled news sites, including Politico and Bloomberg, despite earlier criticism of media outlets.
Agencies across the Trump administration have taken out subscriptions in recent months to news organizations that officials had very publicly cut off this year, reversing an earlier decision to cancel them that Elon Musk, senior White House aides and President Donald Trump had declared was necessary to end what they called a scandal.
The administration canceled subscriptions en masse in February after Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service posted copies of contracts with news sites. Trump said government contracts for media subscriptions “COULD BE THE BIGGEST SCANDAL OF THEM ALL, PERHAPS THE BIGGEST IN HISTORY!”
Related Knowledge Center: The White House vs. the press
Whether it’s the Des Moines Register’s publication of an unfavorable election poll, a routine edit of a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, or the Associated Press’s decision in its authoritative stylebook to continue to use “Gulf of Mexico,” Donald Trump and the White House have used executive authority and legal reprisals in an effort to punish and suppress press coverage that runs contrary to the administration’s preferred narratives.
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