A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Into the Abyss
Last evening reminded me of the night in early March 2020 when Tom Hanks and his wife Rita, abroad in Australia, were diagnosed with COVID. For those of us paying close attention to the progress of the virus and already shutting down business operations and schools, the news that even a vaunted global citizen like Hanks had contracted it was confirmation that things were going to get very bad. But for many more casual observers, it was the first wake-up call that COVID was a threat to everyone.
Sitting here the next morning, I wish I could say with some confidence that ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s show — under pressure from President Trump’s minion at the Federal Communications Commission, ostensibly for comments made on his Monday show in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination — will have the catalyzing effect that the Hanks’ diagnosis did. I’m not so sure.
We are falling, at an increasingly rapid clip, into the abyss. And make no mistake, everyone is at risk.
The writing was on the wall when CBS cancelled Stephen Colbert’s show. But there was some plausible deniability there. Not so with Disney/ABC and Kimmel. Major ABC affiliate owners Sinclair and Nexstar (which has a planned $6.2 billion acquisition subject to FCC approval at stake) had balked at Kimmel’s comments and were taking the show off the air on their stations. FCC chairman Brendan Carr said jump, and Disney CEO Bob Iger asked how high. Carr was unabashed about doing a victory dance.
Nothing about Disney/ABC’s capitulation in taking Kimmel off the air can be reasonably minimized. It doesn’t matter that he’s merely a comedian or that TV talk shows are schlocky compared to higher forms of art and culture. It doesn’t matter that Kimmel can probably find another lucrative platform for his talents that is less vulnerable to FCC pressures. It doesn’t matter that Kimmel wasn’t even talking about Kirk directly but about the manufactured backlash on the MAGA right to Kirk’s killing – the same self-serving backlash which has now consumed Kimmel.
What matters is we are are all now subject to the whims of a coercive government that runs roughshod over the Constitution and its protections. It matters that corporate America is no longer holding the line against Trump, capitulating in what it perceives as its own business interests. It matters that the broadcast airwaves – a public commodity that belongs to all of us – have been co-opted like so many other public goods in service of Donald Trump and his personal and political interests. It matters that the rich, the powerful, and the well-connected are vulnerable to Trump because that means we all are.
Some say it’s short-term thinking by businesses. I hope we’re that lucky and that it’s not a reflection of long-term strategy based on a cold-eyed view of the world. Regardless, the capitulation only gets you so much, fleeting protection from Trump’s racket – and now he knows you’ll pay to play. He’ll come back later, asking for more to secure further protection. The price will go higher as your leverage diminishes.
In the week since Kirk was killed, we seen an astonishing restriction of free expression. We usually refer to it as a chilling effect. It is that, but so much more. The rules of the new game are being written. How far you can go, who gets to decide, who gets to enforce it, and who is exempt from enforcement entirely.
Trump Tags His Foes As Domestic Terrorists
As important as the Kimmel gagging last evening was President Trump’s pretend declaration that Antifa is a domestic terrorist organization. Pretend because there is no such designation under U.S. law and because Antifa, such as it is (not the conspiratorial behemoth in the fevered imaginings of the right), is a loose affiliation at best.
But those pretensions aren’t weaknesses or defects in Trump’s move. They merely expose it for what it is: An open-ended threat to label any perceived foe or adversary as a terrorist. With that label, all bets are off. You have been consigned to a status outside of the law.
The U.S. attacks – three that we’ve been told of – on alleged drug-running boats off Venezuela are a product of Trump having unilaterally stretched language beyond all meaning by declaring drug cartels terrorist organizations. As numerous experts have warned, that doesn’t give legal cover to summary executions on the high seas. But it does give a rhetorical and psychological justification for all manner of extreme conduct in defense of the homeland.
Branding Antifa a domestic terrorist organization is Trump taking the gloves off. It creates an opening to brand anyone a member of Antifa, subject to whatever punitive measures the Stephen Millers of the world dream up in defense of law and order.
Again, new rules are being written as we speak. Donald Trump is making those rules and deciding who must abide by them (and just as importantly who is exempt) and what the consequences are for failing to do so..
Retribution: Jim Comey Edition
Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman, a longtime friend and adviser to former FBI Director Jim Comey, was subpoenaed last week as part of the Trump DOJ’s bogus investigation into the Trump nemesis, ABC News reports.
“The subpoena to Richman, according to sources, stems from an investigation into testimony Comey made before Congress in September 2020 about the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election,” according to ABC.
Richman met with prosecutors on Tuesday.
The Purge: CDC Edition
Fired CDC director Susan Monarez was a compelling Senate witness Wednesday as she recounted the series of unethical anti-science demands from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that culminated with her termination:
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