given that biden s own weakened mental abilities. by the way, all those people in the back are fake news. there s sean, trump s mouthpiece. now given trump wants to run again and will likely have the full support of fox and the rest of the right-wing echo chamber, what could that mean for the fate of the free press? it s an important question tonight. i want to bring in constitutional law attorney and media attorney ted boutros. ted, great to see you as always. i must note that ted actually represented me when trump tried to take my press pass away at the white house. we got it back. we beat trump. but, ted, i was thinking of sending a fainting couch over to fox news and their studios, but i figured they had plenty of those along with some pearls to clutch. your thoughts? i mean we just saw, you know, trump, he drove all of these attacks against the media. what happens to the media, do you think, if trump runs again and wins? well, jim, it was very
amazing. it s great to be with you, and it brought back a lot of memories. i think what we re going to see are continued attacks on the press. the legitimate news gathering that s so important. the supreme court has said over and over again, including in citizens united, a case that conservatives like and liberals don t like, that the first amendment protects the ability of citizens to hold the powerful accountable, to get the information they need to govern themselves. and so this disinformation campaign coupled with attacks on the press is really harmful to our democracy, which is, i guess, the topic of this entire show. no question about it. and what about this anti-press sentiment that s taken hold inside the gop over at fox? that s just not going anywhere, and what does that mean for news organizations here in the united states? i guess i should say around the world because as you and i both know, ted, we ve talked about
this. there are so many regimes around the world that have adopted trump s, you know, name-calling, calling organizations fake news and using things like the enemy of the people to defame journalists and so on. it s very, very troubling and very dangerous. it emboldens leaders around the world to abuse the press, to clamp down on the press. the republican party most republicans in office and running for office, part of their brand is to denigrate and delegitimize the press. and the really harmful thing is that makes it so that citizens don t believe what some of the best reporters and journalists in the world are telling them based on their news-gathering activity. but they re believing the disinformation, the lies about the 2020 election, the lies about covid, and that makes it so we re in an irrational society, and democracy just can t function. so if we have a replay, if this
as a mouth piece for putin, they are doing something perhaps even more destructive. with the u.s. approaching 1 million deaths from covid, fox and the people ultimately in charge there, the murdoch family, are inflaming a public health crisis. to the murdochs, it s your network. you own this. you own tucker s program that s putting our health care workers in peril, putting our hospitals in peril, putting all of us in peril for ratings, for money, so these american oligarchs can keep pumping out bullshit into our homes. now, if only there were a vaccine for all of that. and only there were an answer to this question pushed by another trump sympathizer. a u.s. congressman is opening wondering if eve ever seen a president attack and malign the free press like joe biden has. i need some pearls to clutch. i actually may be able to help
problem? i think for a while all of them until they sort themselves out. the preelection how much was he and his staff, were they involved in the efforts to discredit hillary clinton during he sort of passed over the flynn part of the thing where he doesn t really seem to care if indeed gave flynn the instructions. he thinks this is what flynn should have been doing regarding sanctions, but the big issue and maybe the most troubling is if he has been compromised by the russians and that becomes a fact, then we re in a whole different ball game. donald trump has spent this past week of demonizing the press and delegitimize the press both of them make the sometimes exclusively and essentially saying everything is fake news if it s not a favorable story to