Kevin Kruse on Trump making Nixon look like a choir boy
As is often the case with Trump, the recent rollout of his “media offenders” website feels a bit like something Richard Nixon would’ve done, only turned up to 11.
The site names and shames journalists who are doing critical coverage of the Trump administration, which of course makes it easy for MAGA crazies to flood them with harassment and threats. (A feature, not a bug.)
As of this writing, the “offender of the week” is the Washington Post for breaking news about Pete Hegseth’s reported “kill everyone” order. Notably, the administration’s gripe doesn’t seem to be about the content of the reporting. Instead, they complain about the Post using “unnamed sources” and claim they “published this unsubstantiated claim in an attempt to discredit the United States’ warfighters and inflame anti-American sentiment.”
Talk about an egregious waste of taxpayer dollars.
To get some expert insight about Trump’s naughty list and how it compares to Nixon’s infamous “enemies list,” we connected with old friend of the newsletter and Nixon expert Kevin Kruse.
“We certainly in the past have had antagonistic relationships between members of the press and the president, especially under Nixon,” Kruse, a professor of history at Princeton University, told us. “But what we see now is the president pushing back against even the gentlest of questions with insults, taunts, harassment of media figures, calling them out by name. It’s unprecedented.”
Kruse, however, pointed out that Trump’s efforts to beat the press into submission aren’t necessarily working.
“The howling we’ve seeing from the administration over the war crimes scandal shows how attacking the press can backfire. The ferocity with which they deny things in the eyes of actual skeptical reporters only shows that it’s a sore spot that needs more attention.”
A transcript of Kruse’s conversation with Public Notice contributor Thor Benson, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows. If you’d like to read it and aren’t yet a paid subscriber, please sign up. Not only does a paid subscription get you full access to everything we publish, but it also helps make our work possible.
Thor Benson
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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