Donald Trump dislikes a new set of polls that show his popularity dwindling. In a Truth Social post, he claims that the news outlets that published them should face “election fraud” investigations.
This is the type of thing Trump has repeatedly said. Until recently, it was easy to overlook. After all, it is not fraudulent to publish a poll that someone dislikes.
Right?
Except, of course, things have changed: Trump is already suing The Des Moines Register, its owner Gannett, and pollster Ann Selzer for publishing a poll he disagreed with during the 2024 election.
Trump filed the suit after winning the election last year, but before being inaugurated as president in January. And since Trump’s inauguration, Brendan Carr, Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Communications Commission, has announced investigations into Disney and Comcast’s diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.
Carr has also launched an investigation into Kamala Harris’s interview with Paramount/CBS’s “60 Minutes” from last year. That is theoretically distinct, but very similar, to a lawsuit Trump filed in 2024 over the same interview.
That story received new attention last week when Bill Owens, the top producer at “60 Minutes,” announced his resignation because he had lost his editorial independence. According to subsequent reports, Paramount’s owner, Shari Redstone, who wants to sell her company to Larry and David Ellison, has been weighing in on the show’s programming and CBS News overall.
So. On the one hand, you’d be forgiven for ignoring a social media post from a president who says things on social media and elsewhere that he may or may not mean — or may mean at one point but later decide that he doesn’t mean, after all.
(Trump now claims that his promise to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine on his first day in office — which he mentioned dozens of times in 2024 and 2023 — was made “in jest.”)
You could also argue that, even if Trump is serious, it is unclear which federal agency or official could carry out his wishes. While Carr has the theoretical authority to comment on companies like Comcast and Paramount because they own broadcast licenses, the FCC has no jurisdiction over the Times or the Post. (I contacted both Carr and the White House for comment.)
But one thing we’re learning about 2025 is that things Trump writes or says, even if they’re illogical or impossible, can still be put into action.
If I were running a media organization, or simply someone who believes the federal government should not threaten media organizations because it disagrees with what they publish, I would not dismiss this completely.
