What Happened
Reuters reported Wednesday that President Trump’s court setbacks have not stopped his campaign against the media, which is a very polite way of saying the legal losses may be functioning less like defeats and more like reusable campaign props.
The Reuters piece says Trump has filed at least nine lawsuits against major media companies since 2020, seeking tens of billions of dollars over reports he claims were false or misleading. It also notes that courts have repeatedly ruled against him on First Amendment grounds, while appeals and outside pressure can still blunt the practical value of media wins.
The latest backdrop is the FCC fight over ABC and Jimmy Kimmel. CNN reported that Kimmel said “the show goes on” after FCC pressure tied to ABC licenses. Houston Public Media reported that the FCC ordered several ABC stations, including Houston’s KTRK, to reapply for broadcast licenses amid a political squabble over a joke. Reuters frames that as part of a wider pattern: lawsuits, regulatory pressure, agency access fights, and threats aimed at outlets that criticize the president.
The courts may keep saying the First Amendment exists. The administration may keep finding new ways to make media companies spend money, time, and executive attention proving it. That is the asymmetry. Losing a lawsuit can still punish the target if the process is expensive enough, loud enough, and useful enough for political theater.
Why This Matters
The stupid part is not that media companies should be immune from criticism. They should not. News organizations make mistakes. Some coverage is sloppy. Some punditry is garbage wearing a blazer. Powerful institutions deserve scrutiny, and the press is a powerful institution.
The stupid part is turning criticism into a pressure machine where every unfavorable story becomes a lawsuit threat, every joke becomes a regulatory question, and every access dispute becomes a loyalty test. That is not media accountability. That is nuisance litigation with a patriotic soundtrack.
First Amendment law is intentionally hard on public officials who sue over coverage. That is because the country is supposed to tolerate fierce criticism of leaders. If presidents could bankrupt critics with weak claims and sympathetic regulators, press freedom would exist only for outlets rich enough, compliant enough, or lucky enough to survive the harassment cycle.
The Lawsuit Is The Press Release
This is where the strategy gets clever in the ugliest way. You do not necessarily need to win. You need to announce the lawsuit, dominate a news cycle, raise the temperature, send a warning to other outlets, and tell supporters you are fighting the corrupt media. If the case gets tossed months later, the fundraising email already did its job.
Regulatory pressure makes it worse. Broadcast licenses, merger reviews, agency credentials, pool access, and official briefings are not supposed to be rewards for favorable coverage. They are government functions. Once those levers start looking like punishment tools, every media company has to calculate whether an aggressive story might trigger not just criticism, but bureaucratic retaliation.
The administration will say it is fighting bias. Critics will say it is attacking speech. Courts will keep sorting claims one by one. But the larger effect is cumulative: editors get cautious, lawyers get involved earlier, corporate owners get nervous, and the public watches journalism become another battlefield where the goal is not truth but leverage.
That is the real stupid shit. A free press does not require worshipping journalists. It requires preventing the government from using its power to make criticism too expensive to publish. If the lawsuit is the message, the message is simple: say something the president hates and prepare to spend money explaining the Constitution.
Sources
Reuters: Trump’s court setbacks fail to blunt his campaign against media
CNN: Kimmel’s message to Trump in wake of FCC challenge to ABC: The show goes on
Houston Public Media: FCC orders ABC stations to reapply amid political squabble