NYT’s Lulu Garcia-Navarro: ‘Donald Trump Is at War with the Fact-Based Media’

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
Wallace: “That raises the question will Trump go after reporters and their corporate bosses with investigations, challenges to license renewals and big mergers? Here was former Trump adviser Steve Bannon just out of prison.”

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Bannon: “Ari Melber on all you hosts. Preserve your documents. All of it. You better be worried. You better lawyer up better call mom and dad tonight. Hey, mom and dad. You know, a good lawyer. Lawyer up.”

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Wallace: “Well, he knows something about lawyering up. Lulu, will Trump try to punish the media? I‘m not talking about rhetorical stuff. No, I know about fake media. I‘m talking about about going after reporters. He talked about killing the act that would protect us from having to reveal our sources. Going after corporate mergers, license renewals, will he try to punish the media?”

Garcia-NAVARRO: “I mean, that‘s the fear. And it‘s the flip side of what we were talking about earlier with media and owning the message. How do you own the message? Well you have to also kind of destroy the other part of it. The fact based media that might act as a counterweight to that. And so, you know, I think that the famous saying we‘re not at war, we‘re at work, which Marty Baron said, the Washington Post during the first Trump Administration to talk about what the attitude of the fact based media should be in the Trump Administration, I think is something that they‘re adopting this time I also think that it‘s clear that Donald Trump is at war with the fact based media.”

Wallace: “At war?”

Garcia-NAVARRO: “I think so. I mean I think all those comments that he said. I mean he‘s he‘s um, he‘s basically saying a statement of intent. I mean, are we not going to take Donald Trump seriously after all this time? I mean, I just don‘t understand, like we take him seriously with everything else. And so I, you know, I don‘t know why we wouldn‘t this time.”

Wallace: “Again, Reihan, I want to be clear here. I‘m not talking about him saying bad things about us. I‘m talking about him taking reporters to court, trying to block our bosses. The people that own these companies from conducting mergers or renewing licenses. I mean really using the power of the government is the concern about Trump trying to curb a free press legitimate or overwrought?”

SALAM: “well, I think that people are certainly allowed to be concerned about anything they‘d like to be concerned about. I think the danger. I think the danger that Donald Trump faces is getting a thermostatic reaction that is saying things that are going to elicit a really strong civil society response and a response from people that he depends on. If he seems to be too extreme that has always been the danger for Donald Trump that he faces. And I think that the net effect of all of this talk is really going to be that you‘re going to really enrich and embolden the media. During the first Trump presidency, this was an incredible time for legacy incumbent media organizations, many of them that have really deep internal divides, really deep internal problems. The money was rushing in. The pride was there, the energy and excitement and enthusiasm was there. I think you may well see that again. I also see some course correction. I see some of these institutions that are thinking a lot about how they torched their credibility and—“