The White House on Friday debuted a new section on its website dedicated to what it’s dubbing the “Media Offender of the Week.”
The page features the heading “Misleading. Biased. Exposed.” followed by a list of outlets and reporters who made the list. CBS News, The Boston Globe and The Independent were the first news outlets cited on the new web page.
The site claimed that the news organizations were cited for reporting that “misrepresents and exaggerates President Trump’s calls for Democrat accountability.” Specifically, the White House is accusing the outlets for misrepresenting “Trump’s call for members of Congress to be held accountable for inciting sedition by saying that he called for their ‘execution.’”
The coverage in question centered on a video in which Sen. Mark Kelly and five other members of Congress told troops they can disobey illegal orders and reminded them they had sworn to uphold the Constitution.
In response, Trump posted on Truth Social that was “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR AT THE HIGHEST LEVEL.” He added: “Each one of these traitors to our Country should be ARRESTED AND PUT ON TRIAL.” He also posted that their comments were “punishable by DEATH!” and declared: “HANG THEM GEORGE WASHINGTON WOULD !!”
The new White House page claims that the truth is as follows: “The Democrats and Fake News Media subversively implied that President Trump had issued illegal orders to service members. Every order President Trump has issued has been lawful. It is dangerous for sitting Members of Congress to incite insubordination in the United States’ military, and President Trump called for them to be held accountable.”
It went on to add two key points:
- “Democrats released a video calling for service members to disobey their chain of command, and in turn, implied President Trump had issued illegal orders.”
- “President Trump has never issued an illegal order. The Fake News knew that, but ran with the story anyway.”
The page also features an “Offender Hall of Shame” that includes The Washington Post, CBS News (again), CNN and MSNBC (recently rebranded as MS NOW), citing their coverage of various events. In its coverage of the new webpage, The Washington Post quoted an internal spokesperson who said: “The Washington Post is proud of its accurate, rigorous journalism.” The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to CBS News for comment.
The page also names several “repeat offenders” who “don’t just get it wrong – they do it over and over again.” This section includes the likes of Axios, The New York Times, KTLA Los Angeles, People, Politico, The Los Angeles Times, The Daily Beast, The Hill, BBC, ABC News, USA Today and more. There’s also a section where readers can select one of those outlets from a drop-down menu to see the specific “offense” of which they are being accused.
Interestingly, the admonishment of CBS News comes just a few weeks after Trump praised the company’s new leadership — CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss and Paramount CEO David Ellison — in a 60 Minutes interview. In the interview, he alluded to his recent lawsuit against Paramount Global over the editing of a 60 Minutes interview with 2024 Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The lawsuit resulted in Paramount Global settling in a $16 million payout. Part of the settlement agreement included stipulations for Paramount to release 60 Minutes transcripts of interviews with presidential candidates post-air.
“And actually 60 Minutes paid me a lotta money,” Trump said in the interview. “And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you, and I’m sure you’re not — you have a great — I think you have a great, new leader, frankly, who’s the young woman that’s leading your whole enterprise is a great, from what I know. I don’t know her, but I hear she’s a great person. But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me a lot of money because they took her answer out that was so bad, it was election-changing, two nights before the election. And they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can’t have fake news. You’ve gotta have legit news. And I think that it’s happening.… I see good things happening in the news. I really do. And I think one of the best things to happen is this show and new ownership, CBS and new ownership. I think it’s the greatest thing that’s happened in a long time to a free and open and good press.”
