Analysis: Information is power, and Trump wants more control over it
Books, removed from military academies. Names of civil rights leaders, erased from ships. History lessons, purged from museums.
The list goes on and on. President Trump and his government appointees keep asserting more control over ideas and information — which has the effect of taking power away from independent researchers, historians, and the real news outlets that he frequently calls 'fake.'
Friday's abrupt firing of the labor statistics chief is one of the most dramatic examples yet.
But this push for control has been evident all throughout his second term — and the individual headlines should be analyzed as part of a pattern, lest the memories start to fade.
Remember the headlines about vaccine data being deleted from government websites last winter? Or the bogus math on DOGE's 'receipts' page? How about the 'Friday night purge' of impartial watchdogs investigating abuse within the government?
'Trump increasingly is playing the role of information gatekeeper,' Clay Calvert of the American Enterprise Institute wrote a prophetic blog post back in February.
Calvert said Trump was 'dictating access on his terms' – promoting MAGA media outlets while punishing The Associated Press for not adopting Trump's 'Gulf of America' name.
That AP dispute was about control over information. So, too, was the Trump White House's decision to purge a database of transcripts documenting his announcements and public appearances.
The president has also objected to unflattering stories by lodging legal threats against news outlets. In one recent case, he followed through with a defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal, which analysts said could have a chilling effect on reporting writ large.
The White House has framed some of its most aggressive rewrites and removals as common-sense corrections. 'Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History' was the title of one such executive order in March.
Another move to shut down a reliable source of information, the US-funded international broadcaster known as Voice of America, was framed by the administration as a way to curtail 'radical propaganda.' One of the alleged examples was a six-year-old news report 'about transgender migrants seeking asylum in the United States.'
Every administration tries to shape reality to some degree. But 'Trump's statistical purges have been faster and more sweeping — picking off not just select factoids but entire troves of public information,' the Washington Post asserted in March.
One glaring example involves the National Climate Assessment, a congressionally mandated report on climate change. The authors of the assessment were fired and previous versions 'have been hidden from view on government websites,' as CNN's Zachary B. Wolf wrote last week.
Trump's dispute with the Bureau of Labor Statistics further raises the stakes — and the alarms about creeping authoritarianism.
'Suppressing statisticians is a time-honored tool for leaders trying to solidify their power and stifle dissent,' George Stephanopoulos said on ABC's 'This Week' on Sunday. 'It's happened throughout history, most recently in Venezuela and Turkey.'
His guest, Lawrence Summers, the former treasury secretary, said that 'firing statisticians goes with threatening the heads of newspapers. It goes with launching assaults on universities. It goes with launching assaults on law firms.'
'This is really scary stuff,' Summers added.
Yet some Trump aides and allies are publicly defending the firing. National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett said Monday morning on CNBC that the jobs data 'could be politically manipulated.'
This battle for control isn't happening in a vacuum. There is evidence that media scrutiny and public pressure do make a difference.
Back in March, the Associated Press revealed that an anti-DEI crusade at the Pentagon led to images of war heroes, women, minorities and even the famed Enola Gay warplane being flagged for removal. The embarrassing episode forced Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's aides into a defensive crouch.
Similarly, just last week, the Washington Post reported on the Smithsonian removing Trump's name from an impeachment exhibit at the National Museum of American History.
The whiff of scandal was so overwhelming that the museum issued a statement on Saturday denying any White House pressure and pledging to update the exhibit in the coming weeks.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Texas Governor Orders Arrest of Democrats Who Left State to Block Redistricting Vote
(Bloomberg) -- Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered the arrest of Democratic lawmakers who left the state to block a controversial vote on new congressional maps. PATH Train Service Resumes After Fire at Jersey City Station Chicago Curbs Hiring, Travel to Tackle $1 Billion Budget Hole Seeking Relief From Heat and Smog, Cities Follow the Wind Mayor Asked to Explain $1.4 Billion of Wasted Johannesburg Funds 'Texas House Democrats abandoned their duty to Texans,' Abbott said in a statement Monday. 'I ordered the Texas Department of Public Safety to locate, arrest and return to the House chamber any member who has abandoned their duty to Texans.' The governor's move followed a vote by the remaining lawmakers in the Texas House of Representatives to authorize arrest warrants, which don't carry any criminal charges and can't be enforced across state lines. Republican lawmakers proposed a redistricting plan last week that Democrats describe as a gerrymander designed to give more seats in the US Congress to the GOP. The unusually timed revamp of Texas' congressional districts mushroomed into a national spectacle over the weekend with the Democrats' departure. President Donald Trump has pushed the revamp as a way to bolster Republican power in the 2026 midterm elections. In response, Democratic governors such as California's Gavin Newsom and New York's Kathy Hochul have discussed retaliating with new maps of their own. 'This is not a decision we make lightly, but it is one we make with absolute moral clarity,' Gene Wu, the Democratic leader in the Texas House, said at a news conference in Illinois after leaving the state. 'We're not walking out on our responsibilities; we're walking out on a rigged system that refuses to listen to the people we represent.' By exiting the state, Democrats left the Texas House short of the minimum number of lawmakers required to hold votes. They will be fined $500 a day due to a rule adopted in 2021 after the caucus broke quorum over voting legislation. That year, Republicans issued arrest warrants for absent members in a bid to compel them to return from Washington. While some Democrats fought the warrants in court and secured temporary orders blocking their arrest, those orders were ultimately overturned by the Texas Supreme Court. This year, there are two weeks left in a special session of the state legislature. Lawmakers were also set to address issues including last month's deadly floods in central Texas. 'Leaving the state does not stop this House from doing its work. It only delays it,' said House Speaker Dustin Burrows. Earlier, Abbott cited the Texas attorney general's view that a district court may decide if the legislators' departure amounts to an abandonment or forfeiture of an elected office, a ruling that the governor said would empower him to 'swiftly' remove them from office. He added that the Democratic lawmakers may have committed felonies with the move. He said he directed state authorities to investigate them for potential violations including bribery. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for the Republican nomination for US Senate, said he supported the speedy arrest of 'jet-setting runaways' who left the state during the legislative session. 'This is cowardice and dereliction of duty, and they should face the full force of the law without apology,' Paxton said in a tweet. Democrats fired back at Abbott by casting doubt on whether he could legally remove them from office or have them charged with felonies. Many have gone to the Chicago area, with others journeying to Boston and Albany, New York. 'There is no felony in the Texas penal code for what he says,' Jolanda Jones, a Texas state representative and Democrat, said Monday at a news conference in Albany with New York Governor Kathy Hochul. 'He's trying to get sound bites and he has no legal mechanism.' Hochul called the Texas redistricting effort a 'blatant power grab.' 'We are at war and that's why the gloves are off,' she said. She called for disbanding New York's bipartisan redistricting committee, which draws the state's congressional map every ten years. But lawmakers would have to amend the state constitution to redistrict out of schedule, Hochul said, making it impossible to establish new maps by the 2026 midterm elections. The US Justice Department sent a letter to Texas officials in July arguing that four of the state's congressional districts were racially gerrymandered. All four seats cited were won by Democrats last year. Trump then called on Texas Republicans to push through redistricting to help defend the party's slim majority in the US House in next year's midterm elections. Republicans currently control 25 of the state's 38 seats in the US House, or about 66%. Trump won 56% of the votes in Texas in last year's presidential election. The state typically revamps its congressional maps every 10 years based on new census information. It most recently redistricted in 2021 after a data delay caused by the pandemic. Those maps were already considered favorable toward Republicans and spurred lawsuits. Chris Turner, one of the Democratic lawmakers who left Texas, said the exodus would draw attention to the redistricting and show what's at stake. 'We cannot do this in perpetuity and no one is suggesting that we would,' Turner said on Bloomberg Television. 'I expect ultimately this fight is going to be decided in the courts.' Standing Ovation More than two decades ago, Democrats fled to neighboring states in a bid to foil a redistricting effort. The move was unsuccessful. This time, Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the US House, told MSNBC that his party will 'respond from coast to coast and at all points in between to this effort to steal the midterm elections.' Many of the Texas Democrats are sheltering in hotels near Chicago, said Reid McCollum, the party chair in DuPage County in Illinois. 'They are welcome in the western suburbs as long as they need to be here,' he said. 'We will hide them in our basements.' A handful of the Texas lawmakers were in Boston this week for a national conference of state legislators. Fellow Democrats from across the country gave them a standing ovation at a luncheon Monday that also featured remarks from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker. Two Texas representatives from the Houston area, Armando Walle and Ana Hernandez, said they planned to join their colleagues in Chicago once they leave the conference. They said they intended to stay out of Texas at least until the special session ends August 19. Both said they rushed to arrange pickups and drop-offs for their kids to attend school and sports practices while they're out of state. Hernandez said she ran out to a store in Boston to buy new clothing. Asked about the threat of arrest, Walle said, 'come and take it' — a defiant phrase from a commonly used flag in Texas that features a cannon and has its roots in the state's successful rebellion against Mexico in the 1830s. 'Our constituents expect us to fight,' he said. 'They don't expect us to lie down. I'm not worried about any legal or political ramifications because the people have elected us to do what we're doing today.' --With assistance from Greg Ryan, Isis Almeida and Miranda Davis. (Updates with bribery probe in 11th paragraph.) AI Flight Pricing Can Push Travelers to the Limit of Their Ability to Pay Government Steps Up Campaign Against Business School Diversity What Happens to AI Startups When Their Founders Jump Ship for Big Tech How Podcast-Obsessed Tech Investors Made a New Media Industry Everyone Loves to Hate Wind Power. Scotland Found a Way to Make It Pay Off ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Sen. Warren issues call to Schumer, Jeffries: Get on the Mamdani affordability train
NEW YORK — Sen. Elizabeth Warren said Monday that Democratic Party leaders who've been slow to back mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani need to get on board because the upstart candidate's focus on affordability offers a blueprint as Dems across the country are facing electoral setbacks. Mamdani has struggled to shore up support from establishment New York Democrats, including U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Gov. Hochul, despite winning the June 24 Democratic primary. 'New York City is the place to start the conversation for Democrats on how affordability is the central issue, the central reason to be a Democrat, and that delivering on it in meaningful, tangible ways that will touch working families is why we're here,' Warren said at a Mamdani campaign stop in Manhattan on Monday. The progressive, who ran for president in 2020, said her message was to elected officials hesitating to back Mamdani, while slamming former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who's running as an independent in November's mayoral election, as' bending a knee' to billionaires. New York City is seen as a bellwether for the country's politics, and the success to date of Mamdani's campaign, which features policy proposals aimed at affordability, populist messaging and ground outreach, has attracted attention from across the country as national Democrats struggle to find a clear vision. But, citing concerns about Mamdani's pro-Palestinian stance and call to raise taxes, some mainstream party leaders have been slow to embrace his candidacy. Mamdani and Warren appeared together Monday at a childcare campaign event at the DC37 union's downtown Manhattan headquarters. Childcare advocates gathered to talk about the high cost of childcare and the need for more affordable, or free, options. Expanding free childcare has been a core tenet of Mamdani's campaign. Contrasting Mamdani with Cuomo, the Massachusetts senator said the former governor's strategy is to 'go to a handful of billionaires, have 'em give you a bunch of money and hope that you will be able to flood the city with a bunch of negative ads and somehow that's going to float him to the top.' That strategy, Warren said, is ripped from a tired political playbook. Mamdani also attacked Cuomo's reliance on wealthy donors, including some who support President Trump, during the primary race. 'What New Yorkers showed by a record margin in a democratic primary was that they wanted a vision of this city that would make it affordable for each and every New Yorker,' Mamdani said. Talking to reporters in Midtown Manhattan, Cuomo challenged Warren's claim that he's focused on catering to billionaires. 'I don't even know what that means … I represented the people of this state, I fought more for the working families of this state and accomplished more for the working families of this state than either of them, frankly,' he said before listing off some of his gubernatorial accomplishments, like raising New York's minimum wage and jacking up taxes on millionaires in 2021. 'What did they actually do?' he continued. 'I'm a pragmatic progressive. I don't just talk about it, I do it.' _____
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Company advised by Trump sons said it hoped to benefit from fed money, then took it back
NEW YORK (AP) — A public document filed by a company that just hired President Donald Trump's two oldest sons as advisers included a sentence early Monday that said it hoped to benefit from grants and other incentives from the federal government, which their father happens to lead. But when The Associated Press asked the Trump family business about the apparent conflict of interest, the document was revised and the line taken out. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. are getting 'founder shares' worth millions of dollars in New America Acquisition 1 Corp., a company with no operating business that hopes to fill that hole by purchasing an American company that can play 'a meaningful role in revitalizing domestic manufacturing,' according to to the filing. The president has geared his trade policy toward boosting manufacturing in the U.S. The original version of the securities filing said the target company should be 'well positioned' to tap federal or state government incentives. That reference was taken out of the revised version of the filing. The Trump Organization didn't reply to a question about whether New America still planned to benefit from government programs or why the line was cut. But the outside law firm Paul Weiss that helped prepare the document sent an email to AP saying it was 'mistake' made by 'scriveners,' an old term for transcribers of legal papers. Kathleen Clark, an expert in government ethics, said any excuses are too late because the Trumps had already tipped their hand. 'They just deleted the language. They haven't committed not to do what they said earlier today they were planning to do," said the Washington University law professor and Trump critic. "It's an attempt to exploit public office for private profit.' New America is what's know as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. It's a publicly traded company that exists solely to use its funds to acquire another company and take the target public. New America plans to raise money by selling stock on the New York Stock Exchange at $10 a share. That will hand the two Trump sons a total of $5 million in paper wealth on the first day of trading. The company hopes to sell enough shares to raise $300 million, which it then plans to use buying a yet unidentified manufacturer. A press release issued by New America saying it was focused on 'American values and priorities." It made no mention of the aim to get government incentives. The filing to New America's potential new investors to Securities and Exchange Commission was explicit about what it was looking for in target company. It said, among other things, it would that can ride 'public policy tailwinds" by benefiting from federal or state 'grants, tax credits, government contracts or preferential procurement programs.' Sign in to access your portfolio
