• President Donald Trump has a problem with journalists, particularly those who do or say things he doesn’t like. His latest fight is with the Associated Press, which refuses to go along with the president’s decision to unilaterally rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. But he’s also going after CBS’s “60 Minutes” for how it edited an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris and the Des Moines Register over a late-election poll it published showing Trump losing Iowa in November (he didn’t). Katherine Jacobsen, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ program coordinator in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean, talks about the risks to press freedom under the Trump administration.
• Also in headlines: Trump officials continued to move closer to Russia during peace talks in Saudi Arabia over ending its invasion of Ukraine, the White House says billionaire Elon Musk is not running the Department of Government Efficiency, and another top federal prosecutor in D.C. resigned.

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TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Wednesday, February 19th. I’m Jane Coaston and this is What a Day, the show that is proud of its 100% success rate and never firing the people who control our nuclear weapons and the people trying to stop bird flu and thus never having to go rehire them. [music break] On today’s show, White House officials deny Elon Musk’s involvement in the Department of Government Efficiency. Nope, he’s not the leader. He’s an adviser now. And President Donald Trump signs another batch of executive orders. But let’s start with journalism and more importantly, attacks on journalism and journalists from the Trump administration. President Donald Trump has a problem with journalists, particularly journalists who do things he doesn’t like or say things he doesn’t approve of. Take the Associated Press. When Trump unilaterally decided that he was renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. The Associated Press didn’t fall in line because, as the AP pointed out, the Gulf has held that name for more than 400 years, and other countries and international bodies don’t recognize the Gulf of America name, which matters because the AP is an international news outlet. And Trump, as he tends to do, got mad. The administration barred the AP from Air Force One and the White House itself. Here’s Trump explaining his reasoning on Tuesday at a press conference at Mar-a-Lago. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] The Associated Press just refuses to go with what the law is and what has taken place. It’s called the Gulf of America now, it’s not called the Gulf of Mexico any longer. I have the right to do it just like we have the right to do Mount McKinley. And nobody’s even challenging that. 

Jane Coaston: Okay. It’s not a law. It’s an executive order. And the reason the AP is okay with Trump renaming the mountain formerly known as Denali is because the peak is located within the United States itself. The Gulf of whatever it is, isn’t. And for the record, Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski is indeed challenging renaming Denali. But Trump’s allies will tell you that this isn’t really about the Gulf of Mexico/America. It’s about the Associated Press using the correct terminology for transgender people or referring to immigrants lacking legal status rather than illegal immigrants. In short, the government wants to tell the Associated Press what to do because Trump’s biggest supporters think the Associated Press has been telling them what to do. But it’s not just the AP. Trump is suing the Des Moines Register because of a poll he didn’t like. He’s suing CBS because of a 60 Minutes interview with then Vice President Kamala Harris that was edited in a way he doesn’t like. Some of the most sensitive people on the face of the earth are now wielding the federal government as a cudgel at the people tasked with reporting on what they do. So to talk more about the threats to journalism and journalists in the United States, I spoke to Katherine Jacobsen. She’s the program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, focused on the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean. Katherine, welcome to What a Day. 

Katherine Jacobsen: Thanks so much for having me. 

Jane Coaston: So just to get started, can you compare some of the current Trump administration’s hostility to the media to what we saw in his first term? How has it changed? 

Katherine Jacobsen: It feels like it’s kind of ramped up from what we saw in his first term. I’ve been in this role at CPJ for about seven years, so I was here during the first Trump administration. And I can say I remember calling around the country trying to, like, get people interested in safety material. And now people are very proactively calling us. There’s a great deal of concern about what’s going to happen and the number of lawsuits that Trump has filed against members of the media, the threats he’s made, the scale of it all is just so much bigger than before. 

Jane Coaston: When you say safety materials, what do you mean? 

Katherine Jacobsen: I mean, we do safety training at the Committee to Protect Journalists. So it’s anything from best practices to make sure that your digital hygiene online is as good um so that journalists won’t become targets of online harassment or at least mitigate some of the threats, as well as physical safety training to help protect journalists against attacks that they might encounter while out reporting. 

Jane Coaston: So the latest dustup between the Trump administration and the press is with the Associated Press and its refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America as Trump wants. AP Reporters have now been barred from multiple events with the president. Your agency called the administration’s actions here, quote, “the latest in an alarming pattern of retaliation against a free press.” Can you explain that? 

Katherine Jacobsen: Yes, I think the Associated Press is widely regarded as one of the most reliable news organizations in the United States and globally. And so to have their reporters barred from Oval Office events and Air Force One just simply because they won’t change the name of the Gulf of Mexico, which has been used for 400 years uh to the Gulf of America is preposterous. The other attacks that we’ve seen are lawsuits kind of in increase in lawfare against media organizations. Um. Trump’s gone after some big names that I think we’re all pretty familiar with, which is incredibly concerning and has also threatened to use the Justice Department to go after leakers. We’ve also seen the Federal Communications Commission be used to investigate local news organizations that are reporting on ICE raids and you know threats to reorganize Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, that sort of thing. So lots of different ways. I think he’s he’s used lots of different ways of going of trying to go after the media so. 

Jane Coaston: You mentioned lawsuits earlier as a tool Trump is using. And this week, Elon Musk tweeted that CBS’s 60 Minutes journalists are the biggest liars in the world and deserve a long prison sentence. It’s just the latest development in Trump’s suit against the news program over its interview months ago with Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of the election. Trump was offered the same opportunity and pulled out of it and has just been complaining about it ever since. But what do you make of Musk’s threat there, saying journalists deserve prison sentences because of an interview being edited? 

Katherine Jacobsen: Well, I think there are two things that are important to note. One, it’s incredibly hypocritical of Musk as a self-proclaimed defender of free speech to go after a media organization in this way. Surely if he is entitled to the first amend– his First Amendment rights, news organizations are as well. And second of all, I think it speaks to a lack of understanding as to how news works. Right. Are we supposed to just simply be publishing transcripts of interviews? That surely is absurd. No one would actually read hours of transcripts, right? Part of journalists role is to edit the information down that they have so that it’s digestible for an audience and also so that it’s pertinent. 

Jane Coaston: And I think any journalist who’s worked in the industry for any amount of time can reasonably conclude that the administration here is making a mountain out of the stupidest molehill. CBS has released the raw footage of that interview with Harris, and it didn’t materially change the substance of her answer. And also, let’s keep in mind Trump won the election. So what do you think this is really about? To me, it just is like trying to use this interview as a cudgel to make an organization do what he wants. 

Katherine Jacobsen: Right. Well, I also think it’s sending a really damaging message to other news organizations in the United States. Because if Trump is willing to go after CBS, which has fairly deep pockets. Right. What does this mean for local news organizations that could be threatened, for instance, by you know a local official who you know decide to go after them for an interview that they don’t like the way it was edited? Right. Um. It kind of creates a chilling effect across the country. Right. And sets a really damaging example. 

Jane Coaston: Let’s go back to the FCC, which we talked about a little bit earlier. Democrats say the administration is weaponizing it via newly installed chair Brendan Carr. Carr’s involved in the 60 Minutes suit. He’s also opened investigations into NPR and PBS that could threaten its federal funding. And notably, not very interested in pursuing Fox News, which there was a, a suit involving Fox News having to do with the FCC earlier. Do you agree? Is this the weaponization of the FCC? And if so, what could that mean for broadcasters? 

Katherine Jacobsen: I certainly think that there are a lot of questions that need to be answered as to why these particular investigations were opened. And at CPJ we’re a global organization, right? We’ve seen these kind of tactics overseas in other countries. Right. If we look at Hungary or Russia um using government bodies like the FCC or the IRS or whoever to investigate journalist’s uh practices is an incredibly concerning misuse of these government agencies. Right. It’s unprecedented, really. We haven’t seen something like this in recent memory. 

Jane Coaston: I just want to take a second on your comparison of the U.S. to Russia and Hungary. That’s really, really concerning. And where has it gone in those countries? Like where where has this gone for them? 

Katherine Jacobsen: Uh. Hasn’t gone great, I will say. [laughter] Um. Yeah. I mean, I think we need to be really cautious about comparative politics. Right? 

Jane Coaston: Right. 

Katherine Jacobsen: Equating one country to other never really works–

Jane Coaston: Of course. 

Katherine Jacobsen: –that well. But I think when you look at tactics by leaders hoping to consolidate their power, then we can have a conversation about what Trump is doing and compare it to other world leaders. And the fact of the matter is that it intimidates journalists into silence, especially those without deep pockets, again, to fight this in court. And it also makes it very difficult for a free the free flow of information. Right. Which ultimately what is journalism doing it is informing the public and making sure that government institutions are held to account. 

Jane Coaston: We have at least four more years of this. What worries you? Should the White House keep picking these fights with news organizations? 

Katherine Jacobsen: What concerns me long term is how many news organizations will have the budget to continue fighting this and how many journalists will want to continue fighting. And by fighting, I mean continuing to report and do their jobs. Right. It’s we’ve talked about the different threats that they’re facing, but there’s also the mental toll of having to deal with an increasingly hostile government and, you know, increasing distrust in the media. Right. That’s an incredibly difficult job. Not to mention shrinking newsroom budgets. So what will the state of the media be in four years? It’s very difficult to say. I have faith in journalists ability to continue to reinvent themselves um and to continue to persist through all of these difficulties. But at the same time, there are very significant challenges ahead. 

Jane Coaston: I mean, I think my my concern is that the journalists seem ready to fight. It’s the corporate ownership. It’s Jeff Bezos who owns The Washington Post. Paramount, the parent company of CBS. They have the deep pockets, but they don’t seem willing to use them because they’re afraid of who knows what from this administration. 

Katherine Jacobsen: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a time for news organizations to to really step up and think about the bigger picture of what the institutions that they work for are doing and their place in democracy, really, because that’s what we’re talking about. We’re not just talking about journalism and you know journalist’s ability to get good scoops. Right. We’re talking about the state of American democracy and the ability of the [?] to do their jobs and hold government officials to account without fearing a multitude of different attacks ranging from prison time, online harassment or you know physical assault. That’s, you know, it seems like a niche issue sometimes, right? Media freedom. Press freedom. Why would you care about it? You care about it because if there’s no journalism, then you don’t know what’s going on in your local community. And you also don’t know if there’s rampant corruption in your federal government. And without reporters, you know, we just have to take government officials at their word, which seems perhaps ill advised. 

Jane Coaston: Katherine, thank you so much for joining me today. 

Katherine Jacobsen: Thanks so much for having me. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Katherine Jacobsen, program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment. But if you like the show, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts. Watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. 

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Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of Marco Rubio] We’re going to point our teams respectfully to work very quickly to reestablish the functionality of our respective missions in Washington and in Moscow. For us to be able to continue to move down this road, we need to have diplomatic facilities that are operating and functioning normally. 

Jane Coaston: Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a press conference Tuesday after meeting with high level Russian officials in Saudi Arabia. They were there to talk about Russia’s war with Ukraine. The meeting, once again did not include Ukraine. Rubio said Russia and the U.S. agreed to normalize diplomatic relations and reestablish their respective embassies. The two sides also agreed to appoint teams to help negotiate an end to the war that Rubio said would be, quote, “enduring and acceptable to all the parties engaged.” Still no word on whether they plan on including Ukraine, the country Russia invaded in that process. But President Trump seemed to imply at a press conference Tuesday afternoon at Mar-a-Lago, he didn’t think that would be necessary. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] I think I have the power to end this war, and I think it’s going very well. But today I heard, oh well, we weren’t invited. Well, you’ve been there for three years. You should have ended it three years. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal. 

Jane Coaston: You should have never started it. From what I remember, Ukraine didn’t invade itself. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held his own press conference in Turkey where he reiterated that he won’t accept a deal that’s negotiated without Ukraine at the table saying, quote. [clip of Volodymyr Zelensky speaking starts playing] “I’m convinced that for Ukraine and for our region, for Europe, it is critical that any negotiations to end the war are not happening behind the backs of key parties affected by the Russian aggression.” President Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday aimed at expanding access to in-vitro fertilization. It was part of the press conference he gave at Mar-a-Lago Tuesday. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Fertilization. I’ve been saying that we’re going to do what we have to do. And I think the women and families, husbands are very appreciative of it. 

Jane Coaston: Can I get an executive order to get Trump to never say the word fertilization again? Anyway, appreciative of what exactly is not totally clear. The order just asks for policy recommendations to expand IVF access and make treatments cheaper. Not exactly mission accomplished here, but the administration is right that IVF can be pretty costly. The price tag can be as high as $25,000 a cycle. And most private insurance companies don’t fully cover the cost. Also, during the press conference, White House Staff Secretary Will Scharf announced that Trump signed a presidential memorandum calling for radical transparency in the government. 

[clip of Will Scharf ] What this presidential memorandum would do is require as waste, fraud and abuse is uncovered as programs are canceled and ultimately as taxpayer dollars are saved. This presidential memorandum would require departments and agencies to make all of the details of that freely available to the public. 

Jane Coaston: Radical transparency from the Trump administration and from billionaire Elon Musk, the guy who says it’s illegal to publicly name the DOGE minions firing all these federal workers and accessing sensitive government data. I’ll believe it when I see it. And um here’s a fun fact. All of that information has been publicly available at USAspending.gov. Seriously. You can go check it right now. Speaking of radical transparency, the White House says Musk is not in charge of DOGE. In fact, he’s apparently not even an employee of DOGE. The White House says Musk is just a senior advisor to President Trump because it’s totally normal for senior advisers to go around firing thousands of federal workers as they refer to the agency they are definitely not even a part of as we. The confounding update to Musk’s government role came in a court filing Monday night as part of a lawsuit brought by 14 states over the scope of Musk’s power. The suit calls for DOGE to be immediately blocked from accessing data systems or making personnel decisions at seven federal agencies. But on Tuesday, a federal judge sided with the Trump administration and Musk saying the states didn’t have enough firm evidence that DOGE is actually causing harm to their states, at least not yet. As for whether Musk is or is not in charge of DOGE, Trump offered some super insightful clarification at his press conference Tuesday at Mar-a-Lago. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Elon is, to me, a patriot. So, you know, you could call him an employee, you could call him a consultant, you could call him whatever you want. 

Jane Coaston: And White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told CNN, all this worry about who’s cutting whose job is beside the point. 

[clip of Stephen Miller] Why are you not celebrating these cuts if you agree there is waste? If you agree, there is abuse, if you agree there is corruption, why are you not celebrating the cuts, the reforms that are being instituted. Every day that no action is taken, the entire–

[clip of unnamed CNN reporter] Okay Stephen lets calm down. 

–salaries of American workers that are taxed disappear forever. 

[clip of unnamed CNN reporter] Stephen, let’s calm down. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, Stephen, calm down. You’re way too emotional right now. Seriously. Maybe some people just don’t have the merit it takes for big important jobs. Another top federal prosecutor in D.C. resigned Tuesday. She reportedly did so after refusing to comply with a demand from the Trump administration to freeze accounts of an unnamed government contractor and open a criminal investigation. According to anonymous sources who spoke with the Washington Post, the funds were part of a multibillion dollar grant program from the Biden administration aimed at clean energy projects. Denise Cheung, head of the criminal division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Washington, said in a letter Tuesday that Trump administration officials pressured her to open a criminal investigation into the unnamed contractor, but she said there wasn’t sufficient evidence to do so. Cheung said the interim U.S. attorney asked her to step down after she refused. That’s according to multiple news outlets who said they saw the letter. The Washington Post also, quote, “reproduced the letter.” Her resignation follows a slew of other high profile departures. On Monday, the director of the Food and Drug Administration’s food division resigned because of what he called indiscriminate layoffs that would make it fruitless for him to continue, according to a copy of his resignation letter viewed by the Hill. And over the weekend, the top official at the Social Security Administration stepped down from her position. NBC reported her resignation came after DOGE requested access to sensitive government records at the agency. And that’s the news. [music break]

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Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe. Leave a review. Remember the time that Harriet Tubman became the first American woman to lead a major military action. And tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading and not just about how on June 2nd, 1864, Tubman led 150 Black union soldiers on a rescue mission to save 700 people from slavery during the Combahee ferry raid, like me. What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston and Harriet Tubman is an American hero. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Raven Yamamoto and Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. We had production help today from Tyler Hill, Johanna Case, Joseph Dutra, Greg Walters and Julia Claire. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison and our executive producer is Adriene Hill. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. 

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