'Many of us knew that the second term of Donald Trump would be much more dangerous than the first'

4 months ago

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00:00Separately, the U.S. president has been praising the decision to remove Jimmy Kimmel's late-night talk show,

00:06claiming the move was made because of very bad ratings and a lack of talent.

00:11ABC axed the program after the host criticized Donald Trump and his allies

00:15for their response to the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.

00:20It's the latest display of the president's growing power over the American media landscape.

00:26Well, for more, we're joined now by Reid Brody, human rights lawyer and former New York assistant attorney general.

00:33Thanks so much for being with us on the program this evening, Reid.

00:37Firstly, if I can just ask you what your own reaction was to news of this show's axing.

00:44Trump, in the last couple of hours, also floating now the idea that broadcast licenses could be revoked

00:49if U.S. networks are too negative in their coverage of him.

00:53Well, this is just an unprecedented attack on freedom of expression.

01:02It's not surprising what happened to Jimmy Kimmel after what happened to CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert,

01:10and now Donald Trump is talking about going after the remaining late-night hosts.

01:15I think you have to see this, unfortunately, as part of a broad attack on all dissenting voices in the United States,

01:24whether they be in the media, among lawyers, among NGOs, at universities.

01:32There's a systematic attempt to use all the levers of government and all the power of government

01:39to force people to obey Donald Trump and to silence criticism.

01:48And remind us, what exactly did Jimmy Kimmel actually say,

01:51and would those kind of remarks not be protected by the First Amendment?

01:55Well, so basically, Jimmy Kimmel, in the excerpt that is apparently at issue,

02:06he said that MAGA, that the Make America Great Again movement,

02:11was trying to make sure that people didn't think that the killer was part of MAGA,

02:18and that MAGA was trying to utilize and weaponize the killing of Charlie Kirk,

02:29which is actually true.

02:32I mean, we have seen this really be taken up as a weapon,

02:40that anybody who tries to put Charlie Kirk in context,

02:45I mean, Jimmy Kimmel had a tweet in which he lamented the killing of Charlie Kirk,

02:52in which he talked about violence having no place in society,

02:56as have pretty much everybody on the left as well as on the right.

03:01Now, there are many people who have pointed out that Charlie Kirk was a racist, was a homophobe.

03:07He was very, he was, you know, he said that if he got on a plane,

03:13he would look to see if it was a black person as a pilot,

03:16and then he would get off the plane.

03:18I mean, things like that.

03:19So people are trying to contextualize this.

03:22But this has become a litmus test.

03:25And of course, what happened, the sequence of events,

03:28is that the head of the Federal Communications Commission,

03:32which distributes licenses to television stations,

03:37and which has enormous power over television stations,

03:41which in the past had been basically non-political,

03:46the head of the FCC said that he was appalled by Jimmy Kimmel's remarks.

03:53And basically, he said, look, we do it the easy way,

03:56we do it the hard way.

03:58And that day, the same day, Jimmy Kimmel was fired.

04:04And so this is just another example of how, in this case, the FCC,

04:10but in other cases, you know, different parts of the Department of Justice

04:14are being weaponized to go after and to squelch any dissent.

04:22And the axing of this show, Reid, it sparked a huge debate in the U.S.

04:26For you, does it represent a new front in Donald Trump's campaign against the media?

04:33You know, it's the most visible because Jimmy Kimmel was very visible,

04:37as was Stephen Colbert.

04:40And, I mean, you talked about the First Amendment.

04:43Of course, the First Amendment protects speech,

04:46and the federal government could not have gone after Jimmy Kimmel for what he said.

04:52I mean, Donald Trump this week filed a $15 billion lawsuit against the New York Times

04:59because he said they were favoring the Democrats.

05:02That obviously is going to go nowhere because we do have the First Amendment

05:05that protects freedom of speech.

05:07But what is happening is much more pernicious and dangerous,

05:12which is to use things like, in the Jimmy Kimmel case, FCC licensing,

05:18to use the corporate pressure.

05:21You know, we've seen, for instance, that, I mean, ABC is owned by Disney.

05:27CBS, which took Stephen Colbert off the air, is owned by Paramount.

05:40I'm sorry.

05:42And these people, the Washington Post, is owned by Amazon, by Jeff Bezos, who has Amazon.

05:49And so, basically, the parent companies have huge contracts or huge dealings with the federal government.

05:58I mean, the case of Stephen Colbert and CBS is very revelatory.

06:04The parent company of CBS needed federal government approval for a multibillion-dollar merger

06:11and was ready not only to sacrifice Stephen Colbert, but to basically give, I think it was, $15 million

06:19in response to a frivolous lawsuit brought by Donald Trump.

06:26And this is what we're seeing, not just with the media, but, I mean, you take what's happening with Harvard University.

06:34There's an allegation that Harvard was not cracking down on anti-Semitism.

06:41And so, what is the remedy?

06:43The remedy is to go after their tax-exempt status, to prevent them from getting international students,

06:48to prevent them from enrolling foreigners, and basically looking at all the different levers.

06:58And, you know, many of us knew that the second term of Donald Trump was going to be much more dangerous than the first.

07:06He was prepared for this time.

07:08He had a program behind him.

07:10He was, you know, ready to wreak vengeance.

07:16What I have to say many of us are surprised by is the sophistication with which he has looked at every single lever of how he can hurt somebody,

07:28how he can use, whether it's your tax-exempt status, whether it's an IRS investigation,

07:35whether it's in the case of Harvard cutting off foreign students, whether it's your license,

07:40basically to look at every way that he can make people who are opposing him, you know, to silence them.

07:47Okay, Reid, we'll have to leave it there for now.

07:50We thank you so much for your time on the program this evening.

07:53We do appreciate it.

07:54That is Reid Brody, human rights lawyer and former New York Assistant Attorney General.

08:01Well, that is it from us for now.

08:03Do stay with us, though, for more World News on France 24.

08:05Do stay with us, though, for more World News on France 24.

'Many of us knew that the second term of Donald Trump would be much more dangerous than the first'

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