Issue #1,078 Thursday, September 24, 2026
The day the media put Trump on mute
A funny thing happened today when Trump participated in a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the White House on Monday; nobody could hear what he was saying except the hard hats surrounding him because there was no press pool.
The media should have put Trump on mute a long time ago, but this was still a wonderful thing to watch. Trump running his mouth, seemingly oblivious to the fact that nobody could hear him. Or cared.
But what made this comical scenario even better was knowing the story behind the silence; all the major news networks have essentially banded together to boycott Trump and his White House in protest of his toy dictator attempt to select which news organizations would be acceptable in his presence based on which ones were willing to bow down. None of them were.
There have been some unnerving actions taken by the major networks ever since Trump took office for his second term that made it fair to consider whether legitimate media could survive under the threat of fascism Trump was doing his best to impose on all of us. Most recently, CBS came under intense scrutiny when it became clear how much pressure was being exerted on the popular, long-running news program 60 Minutes, trying to force its reporters to become more compliant with the Trump effect. Widely-respected 60 Minutes news anchor Scott Pelley was fired in June for refusing to bend over, and referred to what was happening at his former place of work as a “massacre.” The New York Times did the interview as a podcast.
Three months later, it appears Scott Pelley may not be the only one who has had enough. Hopefully the major print media outlets will find a way to follow suit, because the only way the media can save itself is by standing together. Subservience is not salvation.
From Politico:
“The nation’s major television networks are declining to participate in White House pool duties moving forward in response to the Trump administration’s decision to bar CNN, MS NOW and POLITICO from the White House, Fox News Washington Bureau Chief and current TV pool chair Bryan Boughton wrote in an email to TV pool subscribers.
‘This is to advise that, effective today, the TV pool will not be covering events designated as pool coverage of the President,” Boughton wrote in the email, obtained by POLITICO. “This follows the White House’s position preventing CNN from fulfilling its assigned pool duties. There will be no replacement pool put in place.’
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