President Donald Trump once again attacked Fox News host Jessica Tarlov — but this time, he publicly called for her to be taken off the air.
In a truthful social media post published Monday night, Trump invited “Fox News Sunday” host Shannon Bream to guest on her show with Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-Mass.) accused him of not backing down for “spreading Democrat propaganda and lies.” He then appeared on the Fox News show “The Five,” calling Tarlov, a resident Democrat, a “real loser” and setting his sights on Fox executives to fire him.
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“For Fox execs only, get Jessica Tarlov off the air,” Trump wrote. “She, from her voice, to her lies, and everything about her, one of the worst ‘personalities’ on television, a real loser!”
Trump, who has a history of attacking the press and assaulting female journalists, has targeted Tarlov before.
When Trump called “The Five” for an interview last month, he told his co-hosts that he was not a “fan” of Tarlov, who was absent that day. He said he was “glad” he wasn’t there and accused him of using “fake” poll numbers that reflect that many Americans disapprove of Trump’s job performance.
“I think your show would be better without her, but who am I to say?” He said as Tarlov’s co-hosts laughed and laughed. “I think it would be great.”
Jessica Tarlov, pictured March 5, 2024, at the Fox News Channel studios in New York City. Roy Rochlin via Getty Images
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Trump also complained about Tarlov after reporting his unfavorable polls last June, calling him a “disgrace to broadcast television” in a Truth Social post. He called her a “real loser” later in the day.
Trump’s latest attack on Tarlov isn’t surprising, but it’s troubling, Jacob Neisel, an associate professor of political science at the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, told HuffPost.
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“It’s troubling that Trump repeatedly calls for journalists to be fired, because it shows little respect for a free press,” he said.
Trump’s call to fire Tarlov speaks volumes, experts said.
Neihesel said Trump’s call for Fox executives to take Tarlov off the air “shows that he thinks little, at least outwardly, about the protection afforded to the press.”
“The fact that the media ecosystem is currently configured encourages him to think that he’s drowning in a place like FOX,” he said.
“We’ve seen some evidence to this effect before (such as the text messages between media personalities at FOX and the administration that came out during the Dominion case), but many of the partisan or ideological media outlets that exist now are very well connected to political parties these days,” he continued.
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“Every president gets frustrated with the press at some point,” said Peter Logge, associate professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs and director of the Ethics in Political Communication Project, adding that the press “isn’t doing its job if it thinks the president is always on their side.”
“This is something that President Trump has done over and over again in his first and second term: he mocked the press, he ignored the press, he called them the enemy of the people. [and] He’s insulted women, especially in the press corps,” he said. “That’s part of his MO, and a lot of voters support it.”
“What’s important is if the press responds, if the press caves in at will, it becomes a problem because then the free press is not doing its job of holding itself accountable,” he continued.
Loge emphasized that being challenged by the press is part of the job of a public official. “If you don’t want to be criticized by the press, don’t run for office,” he said.
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“President Trump’s post about Jessica Tarlov is another example of Trump’s belief that he has a role in shaping news coverage, particularly to punish those who criticize him or his administration,” said Andrew Geronimo, director of Case Western Reserve University’s First Amendment Clinic in Milton and Charlotte Kramer Law Clinic Center.
Geronimo told HuffPost that Trump’s choice to address “only Fox executives” in his post may suggest that the president, who has a history of covering and selecting reporters, is “slowly learning” that it is a “textbook First Amendment violation for a government actor to use government power to target speakers for their viewpoints” — and that he may have tried to frame his post. opinion Threats to use government power vs.
However, Geronimo said that Tarlov’s criticism of Trump “is typical of portraying Trump’s obsessions in a positive light.”
Experts stress that it is important to draw attention to Trump’s attacks on journalists.
With so many worrisome issues to worry about both at home and abroad, it’s important to keep up with Trump’s attacks on the press — otherwise we risk normalizing this behavior, experts stress.
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Neihesel said it’s important not to “normalize” comments like Trump’s recent attack on Tarlov, because “it can be very easy to accept such rhetoric as the new normal on the American political scene.”
But he warned that “it is also important not to treat all violations of democratic norms as the same.”
“Some things that are happening right now are certainly more troubling than others, and we risk making all of this background noise to the average American if we treat every common violation as similar in nature,” he said.
“With so much going on, it can seem difficult to know what to respond or how to respond,” Loge said. “I think it’s important to hold power to account, regardless of what power is doing and whether you like the people in power or not.”
“If the president is calling for the removal of journalists [whom] He doesn’t like it, the press has to call it,” he continued later.
Loge noted that many of Trump’s supporters like the fact that he is not “polished” or that he is not “overly scripted.”
“That said, many of his actions and behaviors — especially in the last two weeks — are truly unpresidential, unprofessional, disrespectful of office and not the behavior we expect from the commander in chief of the world’s oldest democracy,” he said.
Geronimo said we should not “normalize government attacks on the First Amendment’s fundamental protections of free speech and a free press.”
He said that while the president is directly or indirectly threatening to punish media organizations for “expressing unsolicited opinions,” it is important to remember that “our constitutional system is designed so that the government lacks the broad censorship power to control content and editorial decisions that Trump often asserts.”
The original version of this story was published on HuffPost at an earlier date.
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