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Donald Trump is aggressively escalating his pressure campaign on media he doesn’t approve of.

When The Wall Street Journal — whose parent company is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a billionaire and powerful Trump ally — published a news story about Trump’s ties to disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein last week, the president openly admitted that he had tried to get the story killed.

“I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story,” Trump posted on Truth Social, the social media app he owns. “But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper.”

“Mr. Murdoch stated that he would take care of it but, obviously, did not have the power to do so,” Trump wrote in another post.

The story in question reported that Trump had apparently sent a crude letter to Epstein on his 50th birthday in which he alluded to things the two men had in common and included the phrase, “may every day be another wonderful secret.” When the paper didn’t kill the story as Trump had asked, the president filed a libel lawsuit claiming that the story would cause him “overwhelming financial and reputational harm” and demanding $10 billion in compensation.

Not even Murdoch, whose media empire (which includes Fox News) has been of great political benefit to Trump, is safe. He, along with the Journal and the reporters who worked on the story, were named in the suit.

It’s no secret that the president is notoriously thin-skinned and can’t handle even mild criticism, nor does he hide that he’s particularly litigation-happy — Trump has long filed lawsuits, including spurious ones, against negative media coverage. But this time is different.

“It’s unprecedented to have a sitting president file a lawsuit against a newsroom,” said Tim Richardson, the journalism and disinformation program manager at PEN America, an organisation that advocates for free speech rights.

If Trump can control the media, he will be free to enact whichever policies he wants — without anyone to hold him accountable for the harm they may do. It’s all a part of his effort to control what Americans can say, think, or engage with.

The Trump administration’s attack on freedom of speech has ensnared colleges, law firms, individual people, and, of course, Trump’s biggest enemy: the free press.

“Trump is throwing a temper tantrum and saying if I shout loudly enough, maybe the people who criticise me will go away,” Peter Loge, a professor of media and public affairs at George Washington University, told HuffPost. “But if you don’t want to get yelled at about what you think, don’t be President of the United States.”

Because of the First Amendment, it’s a standard of American law that people have the right to speak about and critique their government, and that includes news publications. What’s more, public figures have a higher bar to clear than a regular person when it comes to claiming defamation, or that a story or criticism damages them. It’s understood, and courts have supported, that if you are in public life, the public has an interest in your doings, even if they are not flattering.

Well, it’s understood, except apparently by Trump himself.

“Trump is basically saying, if you say something I don’t like, I’m going to punish you,” Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, told HuffPost.

It is, in fact, something Trump has been saying to other institutions for a long time. Since January, Trump has signed executive orders threatening big law firms that have championed issues he doesn’t like, hamstringing their ability to bring legal challenges against his administration. The president demanded that the firms provide him with pro-bono services — and many, though not all, of them capitulated.

He has also turned the screws on colleges and universities, traditionally sites of political protest and civil disobedience. Through executive orders and policy demands, he has pushed to swing higher education to the political right: prioritizing enrolling conservative-leaning students, hiring faculty that support Trump, and demanding they end programs that focus on race and justice. If colleges fail to adhere to the Trump agenda, he threatens them with loss of federal funding.

Again, it has to some extent worked: This week, Columbia University bent the knee and agreed to a $220 million settlement with the president, even as schools like Harvard have chosen to stick out the fight.

Trump’s war with the press is a holdover from his first administration, and he picked it up almost immediately after returning to the White House. In this administration, he has begun to openly use threats and the power of the federal government to exercise pressure on his critics.

“The tactics that have been used have been ratcheted up from what we saw [during his first term],” Richardson said.

In February, he signed an executive order that purportedly changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. When The Associated Press declined to follow suit, Trump retaliated by banning the news outlet from sending its reporters to the Oval Office and other presidential events. The AP is currently in a legal fight to restore access.

But Trump has used the move since. After The Wall Street Journal published its story about the Epstein birthday card, Trump blocked a WSJ reporter from coverage of official events. The White House had also previously blocked a HuffPost reporter from the group of journalists covering the president, although the reporter, S.V. Date, was later reinstated.

In December, Trump sued Ann Selzer, an Iowa pollster and the Des Moines Register, accusing her of fraud over a poll that had shown him trailing behind his opponent Kamala Harris shortly before Election Day. Trump ultimately won the state.

The Federal Communications Commission announced in February that it was investigating San Francisco-based radio station KCBS after the station reported on immigration raids in the area.

Brendan Carr, the FCC chair, said it was because the station reported on the live location of the vans of federal immigration officers. The radio station, Carr said, needed to “explain how this could possibly be consistent with their public interest obligations.”

“Every elected official complains that the press is unfair,” Loge noted. “The difference with this administration is that Trump is actively trying to threaten and shut down the free press.”

Trump began a feud with CBS when he falsely accused the network of “deceptively” editing a 60 Minutes interview with Harris during the 2024 presidential race to “tip the scales” in her favour. Trump filed a lawsuit against Paramount, which owns CBS. The company said the interview was simply edited for time, which is typical, rather than doctored. Still, Paramount settled for $16 million.

After Paramount agreed to the settlement, Stephen Colbert, the host of the Late Show With Stephen Colbert on CBS, lampooned the company’s decision to genuflect before the president, calling the settlement a “big fat bribe.”

Paramount was in the middle of an upcoming merger with Skydance Media, for which it needed FCC approval.

Colbert, a longtime critic of the right wing in general and Trump in particular, even seemed to acknowledge that the jokes put a target on his back.

“Some of the TV typers out there are blogging that once Skydance gets CBS, the new owners’ desire to please Trump could ‘put pressure on late-night host and frequent Trump critic Stephen Colbert,’” the host said, quoting a Puck News article. “OK, OK, but how are they going to put pressure on Stephen Colbert… if they can’t find him,” he joked.

Three days after Colbert skewered the settlement, CBS announced it was cancelling his show. Executives stressed that it was a purely financial decision. Trump, however, took a victory lap.

“I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” Trump said on Tuesday in a Truth Social post. He also alluded to other late-night hosts who make fun of him. “It’s really good to see them go, and I hope I played a major part in it!”

Paramount’s merger was approved on Thursday. Some elected officials noted that the timing was suspicious.

“Trump’s goal is to have a chilling effect,” Leventoff said. Advocates worry that if he’s able to threaten and punish media outlets, companies and universities with no repercussions, it’ll send a signal to other institutions that fighting back isn’t worth it.

It’s not just those who examine Trump’s policies who are subject to intimidation.

On Wednesday’s episode of the daytime talk show “The View,” co-host Joy Behar discussed Trump’s regular attempts to turn criticisms back to former President Barack Obama. “The thing about [Trump] is he’s so jealous of Obama. Because Obama is everything that he is not — trim, smart, handsome, happily married, and can sing Al Green’s song ‘Let’s Stay Together’ better than Al Green,” Behar said. “And Trump cannot stand it. It’s driving him crazy.”

When Entertainment Weekly asked the White House to comment, it sent a chilling warning.

Behar “should self-reflect on her own jealousy of President Trump’s historic popularity before her show is the next to be pulled off air,” the White House statement read.

“This is intimidation,” Richardson said. “The View is not standard news, but it all follows the same line of thinking. If there’s criticism or dissent, he wants to quash it.”

We don’t have to guess what happens when a political leader tries to clamp down on the free press. Some of the leaders Trump likes to praise are leading authoritarian regimes, like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

In both those countries, cracking down on press freedom is routine. In Russia, journalists have been arrested for negative coverage of the government, and dozens of reporters have been killed. Orbán’s far-right party has proposed laws that would penalise groups that receive foreign donations, including journalism outlets. He has been accused of rewarding loyal news outlets with government subsidies.

“These are certainly tactics that have been used in other countries to muzzle the press,” Richardson said.

In such a quelling environment, even questionable situations can contribute to a sense that dissent runs the risk of punishment.

“People are agreeing with Trump because they’re too afraid to oppose him,” Loge said.

When the approval of the Paramount merger was announced, Anna Gomez, the only Democrat on the FCC, blasted the decision.

“The Paramount payout and this reckless approval have emboldened those who believe the government can — and should — abuse its power to extract financial and ideological concessions, demand favored treatment, and secure positive media coverage,” she said.

“It is a dark chapter in a long and growing record of abuse that threatens press freedom in this country. But such violations endure only when institutions choose capitulation over courage. It is time for companies, journalists, and citizens alike to stand up and speak out, because unchecked and unquestioned power has no rightful place in America.”

Media capitulations will only further harm free speech rights and embolden Trump. “It’s setting a dangerous precedent,” Richardson said. “And it’s hard to say where this ends.”