If there is a distinct whiff that often accompanies the multifarious business dealings of Donald Trump, he likes to present it as the sweet smell of success.
The President’s latest branded perfume, called “Victory 45-47”, is said to be “all about winning” and costs $249 (£182) a bottle. It follows the release last year of a Trump fragrance called “Fight, Fight, Fight”, which retailed at $199 (£145) and referenced his verbal response to attempted assassination.
For the former host of The Apprentice, winning is aligned with money. It is the lens through which he shapes foreign policy and it informs his view of media coverage of the White House.
It was a depressingly effective strategy in his private action against Paramount Global, a historic case which could hobble American journalism for years. Last week, in a humiliation for its flagship CBS show 60 Minutes, Paramount paid Trump $16m (£11m) to settle his claim that a 2024 interview with Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris was edited in her favour.
The capitulation will convince Trump’s Maga base that the President is right to cast America’s mainstream media as deceitful and untrustworthy. Many thought the $20bn lawsuit frivolous. CBS journalists argued that an editorial decision has a First Amendment defence. But Trump saw the bigger business picture.
Paramount is desperate to conclude an $8bn merger with Skydance Media that is crucial to the Hollywood conglomerate’s future. That deal needs approval from the Federal Communications Commission and its Trump-appointed chair Brendan Carr.
So the question has to be asked, did Paramount bosses ultimately chose to sacrifice the reputation of America’s leading news show and cough up $16m in the hope of rescuing a much bigger financial transaction? Paramount has said that the lawsuit is separate from the company’s merger.
Trump, author of The Art of the Deal, will have enjoyed that. In outbursts against what he calls the “fake news” industry, he often attacks outlets for being “failing” or “dying” as businesses, rather than engaging with their arguments. Exploiting the courts to discomfit media opponents is another page taken from his dealmaker playbook.
He took $15m from ABC News in December after anchor George Stephanopoulos accused Trump of being found liable for “rape” (rather than “sexual abuse”) in a civil case. Meta and X paid the President millions this year for removing him from their platforms in 2021. As with the Paramount payout, the funds are being channelled into building a spectacular Trump Presidential Library as a “Maga mecca” to celebrate his time in office.
From global to local, the President continues his legal assault on media critics. CNN faces prosecution for a new app that tracks immigration raids. Trump is targeting the Des Moines Register for publishing a November poll that suggested Harris was ahead in Iowa; he refiled his lawsuit last week, even though he won the state.
The consequences of Trump’s tactics are alarming. They will have a chilling effect on news as journalists realise that media owners might quash investigations that could provoke financial retribution from the White House.
The FCC’s power gives the President leverage over companies and potential monetary gain as a private citizen in the courts. Future election victories will become opportunities for debilitating critical media. More politicians will become litigious with news outlets. Gavin Newsom, Democrat governor of California, announced last week that he was suing Fox News and its host Jesse Waters over claims that he lied over the deployment of the national guard in Los Angeles.
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America is sending a dangerous message to the world. Afghanistan’s Taliban government last week applied a blanket ban on all political debate across print, broadcast and digital media.
In Britain, censorship has become another sticky issue for Keir Starmer. Already characterised by Trump’s Maga project as an enemy of free speech as the UK looks to regulate America’s digital platforms, he finds himself attacked from left and right over the criminalisation of government critics, from Lucy Connolly, who was jailed for a tweet advocating arson attacks on asylum hostels, to the punk duo Bob Vylan, who are being probed by police after leading a Glastonbury audience in a chant for the deaths of members of the Israel Defence Forces.
Embarrassingly, the UK last week dropped out of the top tier of Article 19’s annual Global Expression report, which ranked it 36th, and lowest among western European countries for freedom of expression and information.
Even the United States placed 21st, despite the censoring behaviour of its media-owner President.
Trump’s Truth Social platform, which lost $400m (£293m) last year, is what he might call a “failing” business. It might go the way of other bankrupt Trump ventures, such as Trump University, Trump Mortgage and Trump magazine. But the face of “Victory 45-47” is always finding new ways to make money. And the news media is paying a price.
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