SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Two recent moves by the Trump administration have raised questions about freedom of speech, specifically the freedom of speech for people who criticize the president. The latest to get hit with the full weight of the federal government under Trump are former FBI Director James Comey and the network ABC, after the president and first lady took offense at a joke from late-night host Jimmy Kimmel. We're joined now by NPR senior political correspondent Tamara Keith and media correspondent David Folkenflik.
And I'm going to start - David, I remember being on the air live with you when Kimmel was pulled off the air abruptly. It was seen as this huge watershed moment of the First Amendment. He ultimately returned to the airwaves. Catch us up on the latest twist.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Well, here we are again. You know, Kimmel, ahead of the White House Correspondents' Dinner last weekend, did a spoof version of it at which he was pretending to emcee. And he showed footage of the first lady, Melania Trump, and he said she had a glow like an expectant widow. And he said some days later, you know, he was joking because of the extreme age difference that he felt that the first lady had with President Trump.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: And this was all well before the Correspondents' Dinner, which was then interrupted by an alleged and foiled assassination attempt on the president. So on Monday morning, first lady Melania Trump tweeted about Kimmel, saying, quote, "his monologue about my family isn't comedy - his words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America." And then she strongly implied that ABC should fire him.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK: And then you saw, almost immediately after Trump himself weighed in, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brandon Carr, move to force an early review of ABC's television licenses.
DETROW: And let's just underscore how unusual it is for the FCC to take a move like that.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK: So let's be clear about what we're talking about here. You know, the FCC doesn't regulate ABC. It regulates local TV stations. ABC owns a decent number of them. This is extraordinarily unusual. It hasn't been done in essentially over two generations, since the 1970s. It's based on two investigations launched last year on kind of unusual - and some critics argue - flimsy grounds. He's using them to review the license. He's saying that, effectively, there's a question of whether the Walt Disney Company, the parent company of ABC, has the character to be able to have these licenses that are predicated on the use of the public airwaves.
I asked Chairman Carr to weigh in on this. He hasn't responded yet, but this wouldn't be a quick and dirty process. If they pursue this, almost certainly, it would land the agency in court. It could be a long, expensive process for both sides, including Disney. And I got to say, the reality is Carr doesn't need to really fully succeed in actually revoking these licenses or stopping them from being renewed in order to be successful.
DETROW: Tell me more about what you mean by that.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK: So there are a couple of things here. There's a question of being successful in pleasing his boss, the president who thinks that these figures like Jimmy Kimmel are bad actors in criticizing him and in being a servant to Trump in intimidating the president's critics or those who would give them a platform.
KEITH: And there is a parallel here to the latest attempt to prosecute former FBI Director James Comey. He's accused of threatening the president by posting a photo of seashells on the seashore that said, 86 47. Comey said he thought it was a political statement and didn't realize it was associated with violence. And he took the picture down and apologized, but he's defiant now. And many legal experts, including those who are sympathetic to Trump, aren't convinced that this Comey case is ever going to make it to a jury. But just by launching these processes, the federal government inflicts a lot of expense and potential pain, both with the FCC effort and with this prosecution.
DETROW: And Comey's been pretty defiant about this. But, David, what about ABC? Are they backing down? What are they saying?
DAVID FOLKENFLIK: Not in the evidence so far. You saw Jimmy Kimmel come back the night of Trump's criticisms and Melania Trump's criticisms and then the night after and then the night after that. Meaning, last night, there was an entire monologue about Trump. Let's have a listen to part of it.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!")
JIMMY KIMMEL: The king - he laid it on thick. He came bearing exactly the kind of gift Trump loves to get - a big gold thing with his name on it.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK: So even if Kimmel's cracking jokes about the visit from King Charles III, we don't actually know how this story ends with ABC. Kimmel doesn't seem daunted, but he wasn't daunted the first time they clashed. Trump went after him last fall, and ABC pulled him off the air. And at the same time, then, ABC and Disney were chastened by their own viewers, many of whom moved to cancel their subscriptions to Disney's streamers.
DETROW: Tam, in this second term, President Trump has been so aggressive about trying to impose his will on the press. How does what happened over the past week fit into all of this?
KEITH: Yeah. He picked this fight with ABC after his plans to skewer the press at the Correspondents' Dinner were interrupted by politically motivated violence. Trump has sued a number of major outlets, including ABC and CBS, because he objected to their coverage of him. The White House and the Pentagon have deeply cut access to reporters from mainstream outlets. And then there's Trump's anti-press rhetoric, which he came back to very quickly on Sunday when Norah O'Donnell from CBS read him some of the alleged assailant's writings.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CBS 60 MINUTES")
NORAH O'DONNELL: What's your reaction to that?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I was waiting for you to read that, because I knew you would, because you're horrible people, horrible people.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK: So think of what we just heard there, Scott. Trump went after Norah O'Donnell on her own network on their top show, on "60 Minutes." And that is a network, CBS, that really oriented itself to please this president. CBS, under previous ownership, had settled a lawsuit filed by the president privately prior to that sale to the current owners this summer. They brought in an editor-in-chief who is somewhat sympathetic to the president's critique of the press. None of that has won them protection, or for Norah O'Donnell, in a moment like this.
DETROW: Yeah. And, Tam, I'm curious. This is all happening as watchdog groups are raising the alarm about press freedom around the globe. How are they describing what's happening in the U.S.?
KEITH: Yeah. Reporters Without Borders came out with its new World Press Freedom Index today, and the U.S. has fallen again, down to 64th out of 180 countries and territories. The report says the U.S. has experienced a steady decline in the index over the past decade, but President Trump is pouring gasoline on the fire. They say - they call it a coordinated war on press freedom since the day he took office.
DETROW: That is NPR's Tamara Keith and David Folkenflik. Thanks so much.
KEITH: You're welcome.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK: You bet.
(SOUNDBITE OF MAC MILLER SONG, "COME BACK TO EARTH") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
