The First Amendment in the Constitution of the United States says “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press.” It could not be more plain or simple. A member of the press has the right to report on an event freely as long as the report is factually accurate. President Donald Trump and his administration have shown that they do not see it that way. Trump and his staff have done everything in their power to discredit, control and manipulate the media ever since Trump’s presidential campaign began in June of 2015.

“You are fake news.”

One of Trump’s most famous quotes, blurted out while a CNN reporter asked him a question at a press conference, summarizes his ideology perfectly. The Trump administration has declared war on the media. Trump even called them “the enemy of the people.” He has attacked nearly every news organization that has run a negative story of him, from the “failing” New York Times, to the “rigged” polls; Trump has done his best to tell people that the media’s negative stories of him are lies and should not be read. He is attempting to intentionally mislead the American people to make himself look better and to raise his approval ratings. Even Fox News’ Shepard Smith, a host on the country’s most conservative major media network, defended CNN’s journalistic practices, saying, “CNN’s reporting was not fake news. Its journalists followed the same standards to which other news organizations, including Fox News, adhere.”

At every opportunity throughout his campaign and presidency, Trump has blamed the “mainstream media” for his low polls and many of the scandals surrounding him, making them, the “MSM,” a popular scapegoat among Trump’s supporters. Trump’s administration is the worst for free press since that of former President Richard Nixon, and perhaps all of American history.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer, has repeatedly lashed out at reporters during press conferences, and has lied to the press. The outbursts have become so common that they were even satirized on Saturday Night Live by Melissa McCarthy. He falsified a terrorist attack, claiming that one occurred in Atlanta, GA, though one never did. He repeatedly endorsed the false statements of Trump, even if he was directly countered by journalists in the room. Spicer even held a private press conference, barring many journalists from media outlets seen as “unfriendly” to the administration. The small meeting, led by Spicer, barred CNN, The New York Times, Politico and many other sources from receiving information from Spicer. The Trump Administration came under heavy fire from the media and the public for what has been viewed as a legal hampering of the freedom of the press.

Counselor to the President, Kellyanne Conway, was Trump’s third and final campaign manager during the 2016 election. She has been the subject of numerous scandals, mostly stemming from her numerous interviews on nearly every major cable news station, including Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. Conway is one of Trump’s staunchest defenders on television, and a master of deflecting questions. She became famous after coining the term “alternative facts” during an MSNBC interview and inventing the “Bowling Green Massacre,” a terrorist attack that never happened. After both of these blatant lies, many shows refused to book Conway, citing her shaky record. After taking a brief hiatus from television interviews, Spicer commenting that she was “being counseled” by the administration, Conway went back to her old ways, seemingly making up “facts” as she went through her interviews. Following Trump’s claim that former President Obama wiretapped his Trump Tower phone lines, another one of his false claims, Conway backed up her boss, saying that Obama spied on people through their microwaves.

Later that same day, during a different interview, she defended herself: “I’m not Inspector Gadget, I don’t believe people are using the microwave to spy on the Trump campaign. However, I’m not in the job of having evidence; that’s what investigations are for.” Conway’s denial of evidence only backs up many people’s claims that she lies on the spot during interviews. Then, she makes up evidence to manipulate viewers before cleaning up loose ends in later interviews, like the one quoted above. This is common practice for all of Trump’s advisors: a simple policy of making a claim now, and fixing the issues later. It’s all about making the most noise to rally the base, and then slowly controlling the fallout until a new claim can be made.

The purpose of the Trump campaign, and now the Trump Administration, is not to inform the American people, but to mislead them while discrediting all that oppose its views. As an example, the Trump campaign hailed the unemployment reports released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as “fake news” and “completely false” when they showed figures of a booming economy under Obama, such as a low 4.7 percent unemployment rate in December, the best of Obama’s two terms. Once Trump took office, the tables turned, and the numbers became “wonderful” and “proof of the president’s success,” despite following the same trends and under the same policies of Obama. Trump is essentially calling everything that looks bad for him “fake” or “lies,” and everything good, no matter how minor or hypocritical, “huge,” “wonderful” and “amazing.” This again proves the unscrupulous deception of Donald Trump and his cohorts.

The freedom of the press has been assaulted by the presidency of Trump, and it appears that it will continue. Trump lauded the American Health Care Act, sometimes referred to as TrumpCare or RyanCare, a bill that cannot be passed due to its many flaws and that has been labeled “dead on arrival.”

Trump has used his position as the center of attention in the media to turn the American people against the very body that brings them news of Trump. This strategy has sometimes worked, causing record increases in traffic to sites such as InfoWars and Breitbart, far-right news sources that are praised by Trump. On the contrary, papers like the New York Times and Washington Post, two of Trump’s harshest critics, have also seen record subscription increases, showing that the American people will not give up their first amendment rights.
It is the responsibility of every single American, no matter their political affiliation, to look past the smoke and mirrors of the Trump media circus and see the truth: an entire administration built on lies and hysteria, with no real policy to back it up.