You know a war probably isn’t going well when the President starts threatening media outlets with treason charges.
This weekend, President Trump unleashed one of his infamous Truth Social rants. This one targeted the Wall Street Journal, for reporting an Iranian strike that hit five U.S. Air Force refueling planes at an air base in Saudi Arabia.
“The five U.S. Refueling Planes that were supposedly struck down and badly damaged, according to The Wall Street Journal’s (WSJ) false reporting, and others, are all in service, with the exception of one, which will soon be flying the skies,” he wrote.
This assertion doesn’t refute any part of the reporting, as the WSJ story says the planes weren’t destroyed.
Trump’s post equates the WSJ report with AI-generated videos of U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln burning, which began spreading after the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Navy falsely claimed it had attacked the aircraft carrier. Outlets like the New York Times have debunked the authenticity of those videos, but Trump imagines that they have been shared by U.S. media in collusion with Iran’s government. He then suggested that these news organizations be charged with treason, which carries a maximum penalty of death.
“The story was knowingly FAKE and, in a certain way, you can say that those Media Outlets that generated it should be brought up on Charges for TREASON for the dissemination of false information!,” wrote Trump. “The fact is, Iran is being decimated, and the only battles they ‘win’ are those that they create through AI, and are distributed by Corrupt Media Outlets.”
The President embraced the same narrative while talking to reporters aboard Air Force One. “Iran is known for a lot of fake news,” he declared. “I actually think it’s pretty criminal because our media companies, who have no credibility whatsoever, are putting out information that they know is false.”
Trump’s latest maniacal fantasy comes just days after Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to take away the broadcasting licenses of networks that failed to “operate in the public interest” while covering the war on Iran.
“The American people have subsidized broadcasters to the tune of billions of dollars by providing free access to the nation’s airwaves,” tweeted Carr. “It is very important to bring trust back into media, which has earned itself the label of fake news.”
In a Pentagon press conference last week, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attacked the media for being too negative about the war.
“What should the banner [on TV] read?” he asked reporters. “How about ‘Iran increasingly desperate’?”
Hegseth singled out CNN specifically, calling their strait of Hormuz coverage “fake news” and, telling reporters that the “sooner” Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison “takes over that network, the better.”
Back in reality, the wheels are falling off.
The White House team can’t stick to a consistent story on why they decided to attack Iran, whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed them to war, or how long the bombings will continue. Trump is reportedly weighing a plan to send in U.S. ground troops to seize Iranian oil, while GOP lawmakers repeatedly insist that the current conflict is not an actual war.
Iran is continually hitting U.S. bases and the bases of U.S. allies. At least 1,444 people have been killed in Iran, at least 15 in Israel, and 20 in the Gulf states. 13 U.S. troops have been killed so far.
White House National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett told CBS’s Face the Nation that the war has already cost the United States $12 billion so far, although the actual number is undoubtedly much higher.
Iran has successfully closed the strait of Hormuz, as oil and gas prices continue to rise and the ripples are beginning to be felt throughout the global economy. Trump is currently warning China and NATO allies that they will face consequences if they don’t help the United States unblock the maritime chokepoint, but (unsurprisingly) nobody is rushing to aid the Empire. “This is not our war, we have not started it,” said German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius recently.
Trump reportedly warmed up to attacking Iran after the U.S. kidnapped Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, thinking that it would be another quick and efficient operation. However, this time around it sure seems like the U.S. has bit off more than it can chew.
After the 86-year-old supreme leader Ali Khamenei was killed, Trump admitted that he had no regime change strategy. “Most of the people we had in mind are dead,” he acknowledged. “And now we have another group. They may be dead also, based on reports. So I guess you’ll have a third wave coming in. Pretty soon, we’re not going to know anybody.”
The Washington Post reports that, according to U.S. intelligence assessments, the Iranian government will remain in power. It will be “weakened but more hard-line, with the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps security forces exerting greater control.”
In June 2005, amid a rising insurgency and deepening sectarian violence in Iraq, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld complained about the negative media coverage of that war.
“Everyone I talk to who goes to Iraq and comes back, say they are just amazed at the difference between their impressions from what they’ve heard in the media and see on television, and what they actually saw first hand in Iraq,” insisted the late Bush official. “I suppose part of that is because the news media seem to want to carry the negative, and the news media doesn’t present on television every day the large number of people who are killed in car accidents, or the large number of people who are homicide victims in the United States every day. Maybe if they did, there would be fewer car accidents and less homicides.”
Trump promised voters an end to wars, but his second term has been a speed run of the Bush era. Unlike Iraq, a majority of Americans already oppose the attacks, so the attacks on the media have already begun.
We can expect more First Amendment threats as the situation inevitably gets worse.
