(Dobbs) “Someone needs to explain to President Trump how the First Amendment works.”Not that he’d understand. Not that he’d even listen.
Donald Trump. The un-American American president. This is nothing new for this man. In his first term he took away CNN White House correspondent Jim Acosta’s pass because he didn’t think Acosta was respectful during a news conference. CNN went to court and got it back, Earlier in this term he banned Associated Press correspondents and photographers from not just the Oval Office but from Air Force One and the press pool because the AP wouldn’t go along with his idiotic idea to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. He has loosened but not altogether reopened the door to the AP, which has sued in a case that is still pending. The amazing thing— coming from this guy— is what he told reporters after his Truth Social post: “There’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories.” Two things to deconstruct here. First, “negative” doesn’t mean “fake,” it just means negative, as in, the president doesn’t like the coverage he gets. And second, there’s something even worse in a country which allows a president to tell an endless stream of outright lies, and to try to suppress stories that aren’t to his liking. He also said, “If they want to write them (negative stories), that’s fine, but I don’t have to let them into my — into the people’s house.” Which leads to the next deconstruction: he slipped. He started to say “my” house, then corrected himself and substituted “the people’s house.” Which means, of course, that it is not his house, it is the White House, and in this democracy of ours, and he is not allowed to keep the news media out. Trump ended his unpatriotic post with, “Other Fake News Media Outlets to follow.” He mentioned The New York Times and The Washington Post. Leave a comment There already have been reactions from media standard-bearers, ranging from astonished to angry. The White House Correspondents’ Association reacted as it should, asserting that freedom of the press, a constitutional right, “does not depend on whether the president likes a news organization’s coverage, agrees with its reporting, or approves of the questions its journalists ask.” The president of Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press said, “The First Amendment is clear that once the White House invites in some journalists, it can’t ban others because it doesn’t like their reporting. This is textbook viewpoint discrimination and will be quickly struck down by the courts if challenged.” But the best comes from Tim Richardson, the director of PEN America, which stands for “Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists, Novelists.” He simply said, “Someone needs to explain to President Trump how the First Amendment works.” Not that he’d understand. Not that he’d even listen. Share © 2026 Greg Dobbs |