Month: October 2026

Trump, The Press, And The Authoritarian Playbook

On October 22, 2026

Donald Trump’s recent battle with CNN, MS NOW, and Politico is just the latest in a long list of conflicts with the press over what he views as unfavorable or inaccurate coverage. Many people believe his actions are becoming increasingly authoritarian. Some are quick to reach for the term Nazi or fascist when describing his actions. I know this can be tempting because I’ve done it myself.

While his actions are becoming increasingly authoritarian-like, have they really reached the level of previous totalitarian dictatorships? Let’s look at a few totalitarian regimes from the last 100 years and see how the Trump administration’s approach to the press stacks up against theirs. While there are many examples to choose from, I’m going to look at two familiar and one not so familiar example — Nazi Germany, Communist China, and Viktor Orbán’s Hungary.

Nazi Germany

Prior to Hitler’s rise to power, Germany had a free and diverse press. In 1933 there were more than 4,700 newspapers in Germany covering almost every political, social and religious segment of society. Less than three percent of newspapers were controlled or heavily influenced by the Nazis.

Hitler rapidly seized control of the German press through a series of emergency decrees and laws he justified through a series of trumped-up events such as the infamous Reichstag fire. Hitler blamed the fire on the communists despite any clear evidence that they were involved.

Hitler also used it to justify mass arrests of political opponents and to issue emergency decrees suspending basic civil liberties and he made it illegal to criticize the government. Within just a few months, communist and social democratic newspapers had been shut down and their printing presses confiscated. Independent newspapers faced increasing pressure to comply “voluntarily” with government restrictions on their reporting.

In March 1933, the Nazis created the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda under Joseph Goebbels. He quickly took control of film, radio, theater, and newspapers. The Editor’s Law of October 1933 required every editor and journalist to register with the government. It excluded Jews and anyone married to a Jew, or anyone considered politically or racially unacceptable from taking part in either newspaper writing or publishing.

Editors were given specific instructions about what they would be allowed to report and how stories should be prepared. They were ordered to omit anything “calculated to weaken the strength of the Reich abroad or at home.” Acceptable content was provided through weekly press conferences in Berlin and was relayed to local newspapers. Those who didn’t comply could lose their jobs or even face the concentration camps. By the middle of 1941, the Nazis controlled approximately 80% of German newspapers. By the beginning of 1942, independent newspapers had virtually ceased to exist.

Communist China

China is an important example of media control in the digital age. They have found an effective way of controlling information in a society where almost everyone has a smartphone and almost anyone can post content.

China is not new to the game of media control. The Chinese Communist Party first established the Central Propaganda Department in 1921 and has been in total control of the country’s media since 1949. It found a way to effectively control a commercial media market by allowing some private ownership of closely controlled media companies.

What China has created is an effective system of self-censorship where media outlets employ their own in-house content managers who review all published items based on censorship guidelines from the Central Propaganda Department that are updated on a weekly basis. Publication rights can be granted, revoked, or restricted at the discretion of the party. There is no appeal of decisions.

The party has the “Great Firewall” that blocks foreign platforms and scrubs all sensitive topics from the Chinese internet. Websites can be blocked, social media posts removed, and accounts deleted. In 2016 Xiao Jinping stated, “all the work by the party’s media must reflect the party’s will, safeguard the party’s authority, and safeguard the party’s unity.”

According to nonprofit democracy watchdog groups, Freedom House, and The Committee to Protect Journalists, China has the world’s most restrictive media environment, and it is the world’s most aggressive jailer of journalists, holding at least 50 in prisons.

Hungary

Hungary is important to consider because it is a 21st century example of a state attempting to establish authoritative style control over national media. It’s equally important because it’s an example of an authoritative style government being voted out of office and actually leaving office.

Viktor Orbán used a strategy in Hungary this been referred to as “media capture”. He used organizations meant to provide oversight and protection for journalists and society at large and turned them into instruments of political influence; it’s the way he built and maintained his political power.

He cultivated friendly relationships with wealthy media owners, he made targeted advertising expenditures, and he exerted pressure on independent journalists. He assisted wealthy supporters in acquiring media organizations and provided them with favorable regulatory decisions. Without ever formally banning the opposition press, he wound up with indirect but nonetheless effective control of about 75% of the Hungarian media.

Orbán also worked tirelessly spreading propaganda through news outlets. His government regularly portrayed the opposition media as spreading false information and working for foreign governments. He seems to have a particular fascination with the Hungarian-born American businessman and philanthropist George Soros, something he shares with many American Republicans.

Media outlets that were favorable to Orbán enjoyed institutional and financial support. Critical organizations operated with greater difficulty. The combination of friendly ownership, public spending, and reduced regulatory authority gave an advantage to Orbán’s supporters. While Orbán made sure the competition was unequal, Hungary still retained some independent journalism as is evidenced by his recent election defeat.

How Trump Fits The Pattern

To be fair, I cannot say that Trump is completely replicating the authoritarian management of the press seen in countries such as Nazi Germany, fascist Italy, the Soviet Union, or modern authoritarian states. The legal, regulatory, and social environment in the United States makes that kind of overt government control of the press extremely difficult. But within the constraints of the American legal and political system, I believe Trump is applying some of the same principles wherever possible.

One example is his effort to control access to news events. The White House does not control reporters or what they write, but it has considerable control over who gets access to the president and his administration. It can influence who attends certain press events, who travels aboard Air Force One, and who receives interviews with the president, cabinet members, and other high-ranking officials. Privileged access is a powerful tool for rewarding friendly coverage and discouraging hostile reporting.

Trump has also benefited from the growing importance of friendly media ownership. Wealthy individuals and corporations increasingly control major news organizations, and their political and business interests can potentially influence editorial decisions. Jeff Bezos’s ownership of The Washington Post and the Ellison family’s influence over CBS and its corporate parent have raised questions about how ownership may affect coverage. An even more direct example is Truth Social, Trump’s preferred social-media platform, in whose parent company he holds a substantial financial interest.

Trump is also skilled at using delegitimizing language, a favorite tactic of authoritarian governments. Repeated attacks on journalists and news organizations can weaken the public’s willingness to defend an independent press. Trump’s frequent use of terms such as “fake news” and “the enemy of the American people” does not, by itself, facilitate the creation of an authoritarian program and rhetoric alone does not create a dictatorship. Historically, however, authoritarian movements have often attacked the credibility and legitimacy of the independent press before attempting to restrict its influence or bring it under greater control.

Perhaps the strongest parallel is the use—or threatened use—of government licensing, regulation, investigations, and litigation as instruments of pressure. Even when direct government action does not follow, repeated threats of lawsuits, license challenges, investigations, or adverse regulatory decisions can influence the behavior of media executives. Companies with billions of dollars at stake in mergers, licenses, acquisitions, and other government decisions may become more cautious about pursuing stories or commentary likely to antagonize the administration.

No single action constitutes government control of the press, and many individual actions may fall within existing law. But when media companies make concessions to the government while seeking favorable regulatory decisions, settling lawsuits, or protecting other corporate interests, the cumulative effect can be significant. Control of the press does not necessarily arrive through censorship laws or government seizure of newspapers and television stations. It can develop gradually, as economic pressure, political intimidation, restricted access, and regulatory uncertainty encourage media organizations to become increasingly cautious and compliant.

How He Doesn’t Fit

The most significant way Trump does not fit the traditional authoritarian pattern is legal. Authoritarian governments typically move quickly to suppress or abolish a free press, either by law or decree. In the United States, however, the First Amendment remains intact, and—for now—the courts continue to serve as an important check on presidential power. Numerous actions by the Trump administration have been challenged in court, and the administration does not have the legal authority simply to abolish freedom of the press. This is an essential distinction that cannot be ignored, even by those who are highly critical of Trump’s attempts to influence the news media.

There is also no equivalent in the United States to the systematic physical coercion employed by many authoritarian governments. Totalitarian regimes have imprisoned journalists, closed newspapers and broadcasting facilities, seized printing presses, and, in some cases, tolerated or encouraged violence against journalists. Whatever the seriousness of Trump’s attacks on the press, the United States has not reached that point.

Most authoritarian governments also attempt to establish centralized control over propaganda, censorship, and the distribution of information. The fragmented nature of the American media makes that extraordinarily difficult. Competing newspapers, television networks, radio stations, internet publications, podcasts, social media, and independent journalists provide Americans with an enormous variety of information. The ready availability of foreign news sources provides another safeguard against any government effort to monopolize information.

There is also an important difference in the speed and effectiveness of government action. Authoritarian regimes often move rapidly against an independent press. The Bolsheviks began closing opposition newspapers within days of taking power, while the Nazis largely brought the German press under their control within the first few years of Hitler’s rule. By contrast, Trump’s efforts to exert greater influence over the American media have encountered resistance from the courts, journalists, media organizations, political opponents, and civil society. The historical pattern of a rapid conquest of the press has not occurred in the United States, and it remains more of an ongoing contest.

Most importantly, Americans keep the ability to change their government through elections. Trump continues to have a substantial political base, but opposition parties and candidates remain free to organize, campaign, criticize the president, and compete for political power. As long as genuinely competitive elections, an independent judiciary, and constitutional protections for speech and the press remain intact, there are substantial barriers to comprehensive media control.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The more relevant comparison for the future may be not Nazi Germany or China, but Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, creating an American version of “media capture.”

The Trump administration may continue moving in that direction. It could place pressure on media owners through regulatory decisions, licensing disputes, government investigations, or the threat of litigation. Lawsuits and threatened lawsuits may also make media organizations more cautious about particularly aggressive coverage. Efforts to reduce or eliminate federal support for public broadcasting could further alter the media landscape.

Several potential developments deserve particularly close attention. Will the administration comply with adverse court rulings, or will it attempt to circumvent or delay them through prolonged litigation? Will the FCC use licensing or regulatory authority in ways that appear connected to the political content of news coverage? Will the Justice Department investigate or prosecute journalists for legitimate news gathering activities rather than for conduct involving clearly established violations of law? And will government power increasingly be used to reward friendly media organizations while imposing economic or regulatory costs on hostile ones?

These questions matter because authoritarian control of the press does not necessarily arrive in a single dramatic act. It can develop gradually as political leaders weaken independent institutions, intimidate critics, reward friendly owners, and make journalists increasingly cautious about challenging those in power.

For that reason, the most useful approach is neither to declare that the United States has already become an authoritarian state nor to assume that its constitutional protections make such a development impossible. It is better to watch what happens to the institutions that stand between political power and control of information: the courts, independent media organizations, regulatory agencies, opposition parties, and ultimately the electorate.

Trump’s relationship with the press clearly does not duplicate Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, or Orbán. The question is whether the safeguards that distinguish the American system from those regimes remain strong enough to resist political pressure.

Illustration generated by author using ChatGPT

Sources

Committee to Protect Journalists. “Alarm Bells: Trump’s First 100 Days Ramp Up Fear for the Press, Democracy.” May 12, 2025.
Associated Press. “Paramount Settles with Trump for $16 Million over ’60 Minutes’ Interview.” July 2, 2025.
Reuters. “Democratic FCC Commissioner Blasts Paramount Settlement with Trump as ‘Desperate’ Move.” July 2, 2025.
Reuters. “CNN, MS NOW and Politico Sue Trump, Challenging White House Ban.” September 21, 2026.
Reuters. “White House Media Ban Faces Long Odds in Court, Legal Experts Say.” September 22, 2026.
Associated Press. “A White House Press Ban Was Lifted This Week. But the …” September 25, 2026.
American Civil Liberties Union. “Trump’s Attacks on Press Freedom Escalate: NPR, PBS Funding Cuts Explained.” August 5, 2025.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “The Press in the Third Reich.” Holocaust Encyclopedia.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Nazi Propaganda and Censorship.” Holocaust Encyclopedia.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Editors Law.” Holocaust Encyclopedia.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “What Was Nazi Propaganda?”
Council on Foreign Relations. “Media Censorship in China.”
Freedom House. “China: Freedom in the World 2025 Country Report.”
Freedom House. “China: Freedom on the Net 2025 Country Report.”
U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Censorship Practices of the People’s Republic of China. Prepared by Exovera’s Center for Intelligence Research and Analysis. February 20, 2024.
Committee to Protect Journalists. “2025 Journalist Jailings Remain Stubbornly High; Harsh Prison Conditions Pervasive.”

Two Holy Men In The Roman World

By John Turley

On October 16, 2026

In History

Comparing Jesus of Nazareth and Apollonius of Tyana

One of my particular interests is the history of religions. Every few months I come across an article that starts out describing an itinerant first century philosopher, teacher, healer, and miracle worker. We get to the end of the article and then the big reveal. Surprise, it’s not Jesus, it’s Apollonius of Tyana. Almost every one of these articles presents this as if they were the first one to discover Apollonius and they want to debunk the story of Jesus and point out that he was only one of many first century miracle workers and teachers. Their thesis seems to be that Jesus was no different than the rest, he just had better PR and now that they have revealed the truth, Christianity will crumble.

This strikes me as a facile and quite frankly dubious comparison

Both men lived in the first-century Roman Empire at about the same time. Both were regarded by their followers as miracle workers. Both taught virtues, challenged the powerful, and attracted disciples. Both are said to have ascended directly into heaven after death.

But that’s where the similarity ends. Only one of them launched a movement that reshaped the entire history of Western civilization. The other faded into obscurity; remembered today mainly as a footnote in attempts to discredit the other guy. The story of Jesus of Nazareth and Apollonius of Tyana is one of the most fascinating side-by-side comparisons in religious history.

Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus was a Jewish teacher from Galilee who began his public ministry around 28–30 CE. His movement grew out of Judaism, and he operated within that tradition. He quoted Hebrew scriptures, observed Jewish festivals, and preached to predominantly Jewish audiences. He gathered twelve close disciples, spoke to common people in everyday language, taught in parables, and performed healings. He often challenged religious and social authorities. He was crucified under the Roman governor Pontius Pilate around 30–33 CE. Soon after his death, his followers proclaimed that he had risen from the dead. That claim became the cornerstone of a new faith.

What makes Jesus important historically is the speed with which written accounts of his life appeared. Multiple authors, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, recorded his life and teachings within a few decades of his death, while eyewitnesses were still alive. Non-Christian sources, including the Jewish historian Josephus and the Roman historian Tacitus, also mention Jesus, providing independent corroboration of his existence and execution.

Apollonius of Tyana

Apollonius was a Greek philosopher from Tyana in Cappadocia (modern-day Turkey). He lived from roughly 15 CE to about 100 CE. He was a follower of the Neo-Pythagorean school of philosophy, a tradition that blended the belief of Pythagorus in the purification of the soul with elements of Platonism, Stoicism, and Eastern religious thought. He was reported to be celibate, vegetarian, and committed to a life of extreme asceticism. He traveled widely, to Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and reportedly even India.

There is one important difference. Almost everything we know about Apollonius comes from a single source, a biography called the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, written by the Greek sophist Philostratus somewhere around 220–230 CE, roughly 120 to 150 years after Apollonius died. Philostratus claimed to be working from notebooks kept by a disciple named Damis, but those notebooks are lost and many scholars doubt they ever existed.

Some scholars have suggested that Philostratus may have used the Christian gospels as a source for the Life of Apollonius to create a kind of pagan counterpoint to Jesus by presenting a Greek philosopher who possessed many of the same extraordinary qualities.

The Teachings of Jesus

Jesus’s core message was that the Kingdom of God will transform the social and spiritual order in the present world. His ethical teachings were radical even by modern standards: love your enemies, forgive without limit, care for the poor, humble yourself before others. The essence of his teaching was summed up by the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus also claimed to have a unique personal relationship with God and to be the Son of God. He presented faith in himself as the path to salvation and eternal life.

Jesus’s teaching was revolutionary in its inclusiveness. He broke bread with tax collectors and prostitutes. He praised a despised Samaritan as a moral example. He welcomed women as disciples in a culture that largely excluded them from religious leadership. And he consistently inverted social hierarchies: the last shall be first, the meek shall inherit the earth. This was more than just nice philosophy; it was a direct challenge to the social order of the Roman world.

The Teachings of Apollonius

Apollonius’s message was rooted in Pythagorean philosophy, an intellectual, aristocratic tradition that emphasized mathematical harmony, spiritual purity, and the ascent of the soul through rigorous self-discipline. He preached vegetarianism and celibacy as paths to ritual purity. He taught that God was pure intellect, so far above human concerns that the only appropriate way to approach the divine was through the mind, not through prayer, sacrifice, or emotional devotion. He reformed religious practices in the cities he visited, arguing against animal sacrifice and promoting a more spiritualized form of worship.

Apollonius was a moral reformer who criticized tyrants, corrupt officials, and hypocritical priests, and counseled cities on just governance and social harmony. His ethical teachings urged moderation, justice, and respect for traditional civic life. These were admirable ideas, but they were fundamentally elitist. His teachings required education, leisure, and a philosophical temperament. This was wisdom for the learned few, not a message for the masses.

Beliefs About Jesus

The followers of Jesus made claims that were, by the standards of any religious tradition, audacious. They didn’t just say he was a great teacher or a holy man, they proclaimed that he was the Son of God, the Jewish Messiah, and the savior of all humanity. They believed the resurrection was not merely symbolic, but that it was a historical event witnessed by hundreds of people. The Apostle Paul, writing within twenty years of the crucifixion, lists specific individuals who had seen the risen Jesus, including a five hundred people who witnessed him as a group.

Christian theology also offered something emotionally powerful: a personal God who loves individual human beings, who forgives sin, and who promises eternal life to those who believe. The teachings of Jesus marginalized all other gods and powers, including Caesar, producing a strong internal cohesion and an identity distinct from other religions.

The resurrection provided an answer to the most universal human fear: death. The community that formed around this belief was unusually welcoming. It crossed lines of ethnicity, social class, and gender that were nearly impermeable in Roman society.

Beliefs About Apollonius

Followers of Apollonius regarded him as a divinely inspired sage, a ‘theios aner,’ or divine man, in the Greek tradition. This was a recognized category in pagan culture: a human being elevated by wisdom and virtue to something approaching the divine. Philostratus’s biography depicts him as a miracle worker who could heal the sick, raise the dead, and predict the future. After his death, stories circulated that he had appeared to a doubting follower in a vision, and that he had ascended directly to heaven.

But the theological claims about Apollonius were part of a different philosophical structure. In polytheistic Greek thought, becoming divine was a matter of degree; there were gods, demigods, heroes, divine men, and ordinary humans, arranged in a kind of spiritual hierarchy. Apollonius didn’t claim to be God, didn’t claim to offer salvation, and didn’t claim to have conquered death on behalf of all humanity. He was an extraordinary man who had achieved extraordinary wisdom, impressive, but not world-changing.

The Spread of Christianity

The early Christian movement spread through a combination of personal testimony, community formation, and relentless missionary work. The disciples of Jesus fanned out from Jerusalem almost immediately after the resurrection, establishing communities across the Roman Empire. Within a generation, there were Christian churches in Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Antioch, and Alexandria. By the end of the first century, Roman officials were commenting on this new religion. Pliny the Younger, writing around 112 CE, described Christians in Bithynia as meeting before dawn to sing hymns to Christ “as to a god,” although he also described their religion as “depraved, excessive superstition.“

What made this spread so effective was the community it created. Christians took care of each other during plagues, rescued abandoned infants, fed the poor, and welcomed social outcasts. In the ancient world, where there was no social safety net, this was profoundly attractive. As historian Will Durant observed, the Christian Church prevailed over paganism because it offered a much more attractive doctrine, and because church leaders addressed human needs better than their rivals.

The Spread of Apollonius’s Legacy

The story of Apollonius spread very differently and much slower. It was essentially a top-down, literary affair. There was no mass movement of devoted followers evangelizing in the streets. The primary vehicle for Apollonius’s story was Philostratus’s biography, written around 220 CE at the commission of the Empress Julia Domna. This was a single literary work produced for educated, aristocratic readers and not a grassroots spiritual movement. The biography circulated among intellectuals and pagan philosophers but not among the common people who were searching for spiritual meaning.

Pagan philosophers like Porphyry and Hierocles later used Apollonius as a rhetorical weapon against Christianity. They argued that if Christians could point to Jesus’s miracles, pagans could point to Apollonius’s. But this was an intellectual argument, not a spiritual one. Nobody was gathering weekly to worship Apollonius, nobody was dying for their belief in him, and nobody was going door-to-door in the cities of the Roman Empire inviting strangers to believe in his resurrection.

Perhaps the clearest way to understand why Christianity succeeded and the Apollonius movement didn’t is to compare the two men most responsible for spreading each message: Paul of Tarsus and Philostratus of Athens.

Paul: The Missionary

Paul was arguably the most consequential religious missionary in human history. A Pharisee who had personally persecuted early Christians, he experienced a dramatic conversion around 33 CE. He spent the next thirty years traveling tens of thousands of miles across the Roman Empire, establishing Christian communities wherever he went. There are at least seven letters believed to have been directly authored by him and another three likely written by his followers and three of uncertain authorship that were written under his name. Those letters, still read by millions of people today, were written within twenty to thirty years of Jesus’s death, while the events were still fresh in living memory.

Paul’s genius was his ability to translate a Jewish message into Greco-Roman terms without losing its core. He could speak to Pharisees in Jerusalem and to Greek philosophers in Athens on the same topic. He reframed Jesus’s life and death in theological language that resonated across cultural boundaries. He interpreted Jesus’ message for a broader (Gentile) audience, emphasizing salvation through faith rather than adherence to Jewish law.

He also built real communities, churches with leaders, governance structures, and ongoing support networks. When Paul was done, a city had not only heard about Jesus; it had a functioning community organized around belief in him.

Crucially, Paul was willing to suffer for his message. He was beaten, shipwrecked, imprisoned, and ultimately executed. His willingness to die for what he believed gave his testimony a weight that no literary commission could match. He was sharing news about events he personally believed to be true, including his claim of a direct encounter with the risen Jesus.

Philostratus: The Hired Biographer

Philostratus was a talented Greek orator and scholar, but he was not a missionary. He wrote the Life of Apollonius at the explicit request of the Empress Julia Domna, wife of Emperor Septimius Severus, around 217-220 CE. The biography was commissioned by imperial patronage for political and cultural purposes, not a spontaneous work of personal conviction or spiritual revelation. Philostratus himself acknowledged he was working from sources he could not fully verify, and his account is filled with hedged language: ‘it is said that’ and ‘some believe’. Paul’s letters were personal and never employed equivocation.

Furthermore, Philostratus wrote more than a century after Apollonius died, when anyone who had known Apollonius personally had long since passed away. By contrast, Paul was writing within a generation of Jesus’s death, explicitly appealing to living eyewitnesses to verify his claims. The contrast in credibility is stark. Philostratus was producing high-quality literary propaganda. Paul was writing compelling personal testimony.

Paul’s letters were copied, shared, read aloud in communities, and translated to several languages. They circulated among ordinary people, slaves, freedmen, artisans, and merchants. Philostratus’s biography reached philosophers and the wealthy.

One movement went wide; the other stayed narrow.

Why Christianity Won: The Big Picture

The success of Christianity over the Apollonius movement, and over every other spiritual alternative in the Roman world, came down to several advantages.

First, the message was universal. Jesus’s gospel was for everyone: Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female. Apollonius’s Pythagorean philosophy required education and leisure to be appreciated. Christianity could be grasped by an illiterate farmer in Syria or a senator in Rome.

Second, the community was real. Christian churches were functioning communities that provided mutual aid, social belonging, and shared identity. The Apollonius movement never produced anything like this. As historian Rodney Stark has argued, Christianity replaced paganism largely because it improved the lives of its adherents in concrete, measurable ways.

Third, the documentation was early. Multiple independent accounts of Jesus’s life appeared within decades of his death, while eyewitnesses were alive to confirm or deny them. The Apollonius story appeared 150 years after his death, from a single commissioned source, with no living witnesses.

Fourth, the theological core was transformative. The resurrection of Jesus was not just a claim about one man; it was a promise for every human being who believed in him. Death itself had been defeated. No philosopher, however wise, offered that.

John Remsburg, writing in 1909, put it simply: the religion of Apollonius disappeared because the proper conditions for its development did not exist. Christianity thrived because the existing conditions were favorable and because its message was more powerful.

Finally, Christianity had Paul. One passionate, tireless, theologically sophisticated missionary who planted churches from Jerusalem to Rome is worth a thousand imperial commissions. Philostratus produced a book. Paul changed the world.

───────────────────────────────────────────────

Image generated by author using ChatGPT.

Sources

Apollonius of Tyana – Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollonius_of_Tyana

Philopedia: Apollonius of Tyana: https://philopedia.org/philosophers/apollonius-of-tyana/

About Bible Prophecy: Was Apollonius of Tyana a First Century Miracle Worker Like Jesus?: https://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/apollonius-of-tyana.htm

Christian Publishing House: How Do the Claims About Apollonius Compare to Jesus Christ?: https://christianpublishinghouse.co/2024/12/08/how-do-the-claims-about-apollonius-of-tyana-compare-to-jesus-christ/

Tektonics: Apollonius of Tyana and Jesus: https://www.tektonics.org/copycat/apollonius.php

GreekReporter: The Ancient Greek Jesus Christ, Apollonius of Tyana: https://greekreporter.com/2025/12/20/greek-jesus-christ-apollonius-tyana/

PBS Frontline: Why Did Christianity Succeed?: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/why/appeal.html

Wikipedia: Spread of Christianity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spread_of_Christianity

Saint Sophia DC: Four Reasons Why Early Christianity Grew So Quickly: https://www.saintsophiadc.org/four-reasons-early-christianity-grew-quickly/

Catholic Encyclopedia: Neo-Pythagorean Philosophy: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10745a.htm

CARM: Apollonius of Tyana Also Did Miracles – What About Him?: https://carm.org/evidence-and-answers/apollonius-of-tyana-also-did-miracles-and-rose-what-about-him/

Paul of Tarsus – Studies of Religion II: https://lumensor.weebly.com/paul-of-tarsus.html

Ad Fontes: Christian Influence on Imperial-Era Greek Philosophy: https://adfontesjournal.com/andrew-koperski/an-example-of-christian-influence-on-imperial-era-greek-philosophy-and-why-it-makes-one-gloomy-about-the-present/ ────────────────────────────────────────────────

The Generation Gap Is In The Soap Dish

By John Turley

On October 9, 2026

In Humor

It seems that hardly a week goes by that I don’t see one or more articles about some aspect of the “generation gap”. Usually, they have something to do with old folks complaining about how the younger generation has no manners, respect, or work ethic and the younger people complaining about how the old fogeys—usually referred to as Boomers—just don’t understand technology, social media, or whatever the hot item of the day is. Of course, they expect us old folks to benefit from the vast experience gained in their two and a half decades of life. I’m always reminded of an old saying, “all old people were young once, but no young person has ever been old.” Of course, there I go again, another Boomer wandering back into the past.

But there is a real generation gap, and it is “bar soap versus shower gel.” It’s hard to believe, but somebody actually did a survey on this subject and found that 65% of older people prefer bar soap while about 75% of younger people preferred shower gel.

It actually surprised me to learn that all that soap in the squeeze bottles isn’t the same. There is shower gel and then there is body wash. Apparently, body wash is more moisturizing while gel is better for oily skin. I just know that I don’t care for either one of them and I always feel like they never get completely rinsed off.

My wife and I have been doing a lot of traveling this summer and it seems that hotels have almost all completed their transition from bar soap to that liquid stuff in a dispenser hanging on the wall. From what little research I’ve done, apparently this went into full swing during COVID. The claim was that the shower gel is less likely to transmit infection. Although I don’t understand how a dispenser that sits there all the time and is handled by everyone is less a threat of infection than an individually wrapped bar of soap that only I handle. I think it’s just cheaper.

I only ask one thing from a bar of soap and that’s to get me clean. It’s a pretty simple process. You pick it up. You use it. You put it down. You can hold it in one hand. You’re not trying to open a slippery bottle with wet hands. In between showers the soap just sits in a dish waiting for its next job.

It seems to me that life with shower gel is much more complicated. You can’t take a shower until you have a collection of bottles and a personal development plan. You must have one bottle for your hair, one bottle for your face, and another bottle for your body. You have your energizing body wash for the mornings and a calming body wash for evenings. You also have a body wash with botanical extracts for when you need to reconnect with nature. It’s important to have a selection of body washes to be sure that one will match your mood. And don’t even get me started on exfoliating.

If you ask, “Which one is soap?”, you get the answer “It’s not soap, it’s a hydrating shower gel.” You then ask, “Does it get you clean?” And the answer is “Yes.” You respond, “Then it’s soap.” Although I suppose that may be considered an insensitive line of questioning.

I know when my bar of soap is about to fade away, it keeps getting smaller. With shower gel you don’t discover the bottle is empty until you’re standing there soaking wet and trying to squeeze out the last little bit. Maybe it’s just me, but I’d prefer a little advance notice.

And then there’s the whole thing about fragrances. I prefer my soap to smell something like soap. With shower gel there is a whole range of everything from cedarwood to spice to cinnamon to coastal sage to citrus fruit. I can’t even begin to guess what Morning Breeze is supposed to smell like.

I suppose that there’s room for coexistence. I’ll keep my bar of soap, and they can keep their collection of squeezables. But it’s going to take a much larger soap dish. Just so no one expects me to try their brand new $20 bottle of eucalyptus body wash.

Image generated by author using ChatGPT.

Who Pays for American Politics? Citizens United and the Rise of Big Money

By John Turley

On October 7, 2026

In Uncategorized

In January 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court issued one of the most consequential and controversial campaign-finance decisions in modern American history: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. The 5–4 ruling dramatically altered the regulatory restrictions on political spending. It allowed corporations, labor unions, and nonprofit organizations to spend unlimited amounts of organizational funds to independently support or oppose political candidates.

It was hailed by supporters as an important victory for freedom of speech and condemned by critics as opening American elections to the unprecedented influence of special-interest money. For more than sixteen years, Citizens United has shaped the way political campaigns have been financed and continues to do so as we approach the 2026 midterm elections.

I first published this article a little over a year ago and with the reports of increasing sums of dark money being spent on this election, I decided it was time to update it.

The Origins of the Case

In 2008, Citizens United, a conservative nonprofit organization, produced Hillary: The Movie, a 90-minute documentary highly critical of then-Senator Hillary Clinton, who was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Citizens United planned to distribute the film as a video-on-demand during the primary season.

The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, also known as McCain-Feingold, prohibited corporations and labor unions from using their general funds for “electioneering communications” during federal elections. Citizens United challenged the restriction, arguing that it violated the First Amendment.

A three-judge federal district court ruled against Citizens United and the organization appealed to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court could have decided the case narrowly; but the justices chose to address the larger question of whether previous precedents restricting corporate political expenditures should be overturned.

The Supreme Court’s Ruling

On January 21, 2010, the Court ruled 5–4 in favor of Citizens United. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito.

The Court concluded that the government could not restrict independent political expenditure based on the identity of the speaker. Corporations and unions could now use treasury funds to pay for independent communications supporting or opposing candidates.

Kennedy wrote that political speech is “indispensable to decision making in a democracy,” even when the speaker was a corporation.

The decision overturned Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce (1990) and part of the Court’s earlier ruling in McConnell v. Federal Election Commission (2003).

Justice John Paul Stevens wrote a lengthy dissent. He argued that corporations were different from individual citizens in ways that legitimately justify different campaign-finance rules. He warned that the decision would undermine public confidence in democratic government.

The Court did not rule that corporations could contribute unlimited amounts directly to candidates. Limits on direct campaign contributions remained in effect. The ruling concerned independent expenditures—money spent advocating for or against candidates without legally prohibited coordination with their campaigns.

Super PACs

It is misleading to say that Citizens United alone created super PACs, but it certainly laid the groundwork.

Two months after Citizens United, relying on the Supreme Court’s reasoning in that case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decided SpeechNow.org v. FEC. It concluded that the government could not limit contributions to organizations that made only independent expenditures.

The combination of Citizens United and SpeechNow produced the legal foundation for what would become known as the super PAC.

Unlike an ordinary political action committee, a super PAC can accept unlimited contributions from individuals, corporations, unions, and other political committees. It cannot contribute directly to a candidate, and its expenditures must remain legally independent of the candidate it supports.

The distinction sounds significant on paper, but it has become one of the most disputed features of modern campaign finance.

While federal law still prohibits actual coordination as defined by FEC regulations, critics argue that the rules leave considerable room for outside organizations and campaigns to operate in parallel while maintaining the legal fiction of independence. Super PACs can be organized by people who previously worked for a candidate. They can devote all their resources to electing a single candidate. They can conduct advertising and voter-mobilization programs that closely mirror a campaign’s own activities.

The Explosion of Outside Spending

Outside political spending has increased enormously during the post-Citizens United era. According to an OpenSecrets analysis reported after the 2024 election, spending outside reached a record of approximately $4.5 billion. Super PACs accounted for a large portion of that spending.

America PAC, the super PAC closely associated with Elon Musk, reported approximately $263 million in receipts and $261 million in expenditures during 2024. About $174 million of its spending was reported to the FEC as independent expenditures.

While Musk was hardly the only wealthy donor, OpenSecrets estimated that he gave more than $291 million to Republican candidates, political committees, and “unaffiliated” organizations during the 2024 cycle. Five other individuals each contributed more than $100 million to groups supporting Republican candidates and issues. Democrats likewise benefited from wealthy donors though to a significantly lesser degree.

The Rise of Dark Money

The least transparent part of the system is what has become known as “dark money.”

Super PACs themselves generally must disclose their donors. But some nonprofit organizations and shell companies can participate in political spending without publicly revealing the source of their money. These organizations can also contribute money to super PACs, producing situations in which the super PAC discloses the organization that gave it the money without necessarily revealing the original source.

A Brennan Center analysis published in 2025 estimated that at least $1.9 billion in dark money entered federal elections during the 2024 cycle, nearly twice the comparable total for 2020. Approximately $1.3 billion came from nonprofits and shell companies contributing to super PACs.

The researchers cautioned that even the $1.9 billion figure was probably an underestimate because some political activity, particularly certain forms of digital advertising and spending, cannot be fully tracked. They estimated that dark-money organizations probably have spent at least $4.3 billion influencing federal elections since Citizens United.

What About Corruption?

The Court rejected the argument that independent expenditures created the same corruption concerns as direct contributions to candidates. The Court reasoned that if a corporation or individual independently purchases an advertisement supporting a candidate, that expenditure does not create the same potential quid pro quo arrangement as giving money directly to the candidate.

Critics argue that this distinction has little validity in the real world. A donor may give millions of dollars to a super PAC devoted almost entirely to electing one politician. Even without an explicit agreement between donor and candidate, it is hard to believe that such spending doesn’t provide extraordinary access and influence.

Supporters of the decision say that influence is not the same thing as bribery or corruption. Wealthy people, corporations, unions, newspapers, advocacy organizations, and ordinary citizens all have constitutional rights to advocate political ideas. From this perspective, allowing government to decide that some speakers possess too much influence creates its own threat to political expression.

What Americans Think

Public reaction to the ruling has historically been negative, although the best-known nationwide polls are now over a decade old.

A Washington Post–ABC News poll conducted shortly after the 2010 decision found that 80 percent of respondents opposed the ruling, including 85 percent of Democrats, 76 percent of Republicans, and 81 percent of independents. Two years later, Pew Research Center found that 65 percent of registered voters who knew about the new independent spending rules believed they were having a negative effect on the presidential campaign.

Reform Efforts

Some reform advocates favor a constitutional amendment allowing Congress and the states greater authority to regulate campaign spending. Others concentrate on disclosure requirements, arguing that even if independent spending remains unlimited, voters should at least be able to determine who ultimately supplied the money.

Another approach is to restrict contributions to super PACs through legislation designed to invite reconsideration of the constitutional issues by the Supreme Court.

The Abolish Super PACs Act, H.R. 2352, was introduced in the House in March 2025. A Senate version, S. 4602, was introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders in May 2026. Both seek to impose contribution limits on super PACs. As of October 2026, neither has become law.

The prospects for major reform are complicated by the First Amendment principles established in a series of campaign-finance decisions extending back decades. Congress cannot simply reenact the restrictions struck down by the Court and expect them to survive constitutional review by a court that still has many of the justices who made the original ruling.

Citizens United and the 2026 Elections

As November 3, 2026, midterm elections approach, Citizens United remains firmly in place. The super PACs and other outside organizations are still important participants in congressional races.

The enormous sums involved have changed the nature of political campaigns. The individual candidate is no longer the largest financial force in most national and in some state and local elections. A few wealthy donors or organizations can influence the outcome by spending millions of dollars supporting or opposing candidates without ever contributing money directly to any campaign.

It is hotly debated whether this represents an expansion of political freedom or a form of de facto political bribery. This is the fundamental disagreement about Citizens United.

Citizens United did not invent money in American politics. Wealthy donors, corporations, unions, political machines, and special interests have influenced elections since the founding of the republic. The decision didn’t eliminate contribution limits, and it didn’t allow every form of political spending to be kept secret.

It did change one of the rules governing political power. The government can no longer limit independent political expenditure simply because the speaker is a corporation or union. Combined with SpeechNow, it produced a political system in which billions of dollars can be raised and spent outside the traditional campaign structure.

The debate reaches well beyond campaign finance law and asks a question we have struggled with since our first elections. When does protecting political liberty for individuals and organizations begin to conflict with preserving political equality among citizens?

More than sixteen years after Citizens United, we are still trying to answer it.

Images generated by author using ChatGPT.

References

Supreme Court of the United States. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010). The Court’s official published opinion.
Supreme Court — Citizens United v. FEC

Federal Election Commission. “SpeechNow.org v. FEC.” Summary of the 2010 D.C. Circuit decision that helped establish the legal basis for independent-expenditure-only committees.
FEC — SpeechNow.org v. FEC

Federal Election Commission. “Understanding Independent Expenditures.” Explanation of federal rules governing independent and coordinated spending.
FEC — Understanding Independent Expenditures

Federal Election Commission. “Types of Nonconnected PACs.” Explanation of super PACs and hybrid PACs.
FEC — Types of Nonconnected PACs

Federal Election Commission. “America PAC — Committee Overview.” Official campaign-finance reports for America PAC.
FEC — America PAC

Brennan Center for Justice. Marina Pino and Julia Fishman, “Fifteen Years Later, Citizens United Defined the 2024 Election,” January 14, 2025.
Brennan Center — Citizens United and the 2024 Election

Brennan Center for Justice. Anna Massoglia, “Dark Money Hit a Record High of $1.9 Billion in 2024 Federal Races,” May 7, 2025.
Brennan Center — 2024 Dark Money Report

OpenSecrets. Anna Massoglia, analysis of record outside spending in the 2024 federal elections. The analysis calculated approximately $4.5 billion in outside spending.
OpenSecrets analysis — 2024 Outside Spending

Pew Research Center. “Super PACs Having Negative Impact, Say Voters Aware of ‘Citizens United’ Ruling,” January 17, 2012.
Pew Research Center — Citizens United and Super PAC Polling

U.S. Government Publishing Office. Abolish Super PACs Act, H.R. 2352, 119th Congress, introduced March 26, 2025.
GovInfo — H.R. 2352

U.S. Government Publishing Office. Abolish Super PACs Act, S. 4602, 119th Congress, introduced May 20, 2026.
GovInfo — S. 4602

Controlling the Story: Donald Trump’s Decade-Long Battle with the Press

By John Turley

On October 3, 2026

In Uncategorized

In July 2025 when Trump descended that famous escalator to announce his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination, I thought he was just a fading reality TV star trying to increase his brand. I never suspected he would be a serious candidate, but I hoped that he would bring some entertainment to what appeared to be a large but otherwise boring field of Republican candidates. I just hoped he wouldn’t drop out too soon. I never expected nor could even have imagined that this would be the beginning of more than a decade of turmoil, the least of which is Trump‘s relationship to the media.

Interestingly, Trump’s love-hate relationship with the media didn’t begin with his presidential campaign. In the 1970s and 80s when he was a real estate developer, he began courting the press. Like most things in his life, it was transactional. He would trade gossip and insider information about the real estate business in return for favorable publicity about himself and his businesses. He was even known to call reporters using a fake name to praise himself and try to curry more favorable coverage.

Even then he was not above criticizing the press, laying the early groundwork for his much later claims of “fake news “. If a news article listed his net worth as being less than what he claimed or would criticize a real estate project, he would respond with unfailing criticism. He filed a $500 million lawsuit against the Chicago Tribune after an article criticized his 150-story Manhattan skyscraper project as being “one of the silliest things anyone could inflict on New York “. He also filed a $5 billion lawsuit against journalist Timothy O’Brien for his 2005 book Trump Nation which estimated his net worth in between $150 million and $250 million, far below the billions that Trump had claimed. Both of these lawsuits were dismissed. This may have set the stage for Trump’s litigative interaction with the news media. He didn’t have to win to get the attention he was seeking. Later, as president he would have the additional leverage to almost force settlement by the news media who needed his approval for their larger projects.

Trump’s relationship with the media changed with the premiere of The Apprentice in 2004. The show presented Trump as an exceptionally successful and decisive businessman. Since it wasn’t journalism, but was instead entertainment, it was given a factual pass. The Apprentice left him accustomed to mostly favorable coverage, making the media response to his campaign that much more surprising to him.

Back to the escalator.

At first, most of the media treated him as a curiosity, and an entertaining one as well. He could be counted on for a colorful quote or a timely soundbite. Some thought it was a publicity stunt designed to increase his reality TV brand. But early in his campaign for the nomination, his tone turned dark, attacking immigrants, liberals, and his opponents for the nomination. He no longer seemed as amusing.

As reporters began to dig into his finances and business practices and to question the credibility of many of his claims, Trump went on the attack.

He quickly learned that he could dominate a news cycle with provocative statements, outrageous claims, and personal insults. While the coverage was not always positive, it always satisfied his need for attention. He was beginning to refine his persecution narrative that would become a central theme in his personal political brand.

Trump’s first use of his now iconic phrase “fake news” was on December 10th, 2016, in a tweet about a month after he won election. In a January 11th, 2017, news conference Trump refused to answer a question from CNN correspondent Jim Acosta saying, “You are fake news.” He rapidly incorporated that phrase for anything that was critical or with which he disagreed. He went so far as to call much of the media “enemies of the American people”. He was attempting to claim the news outlet critical to him were in fact hostile to the country.

Trump claimed to have invented the term “fake news,” but like many other things associated with him it did not stand up to scrutiny. The Oxford English Dictionary identifies the earliest use of the term as a story in the Milwaukee Daily Journal in 1890. The term “fake news” appeared in numerous newspapers throughout the 1890s and early 1900s. Even earlier, newspapers had used a term “false news” for stories they felt were obviously untrue. This usage was limited to stories that were believed to have been fabricated. Trump morphed it into a criticism of anything he didn’t like.

Trump’s battle with Jim Acosta continued until November 2018 when he revoked Acosta’s White House press credentials. This is the first time that a president’s press office has ever cancelled a reporter’s credentials for anything other than a security or conduct issue.

His battle with the press continued in his second term. He developed a new strategy and began to file defamation and related lawsuits against major news outlets. He filed multiple lawsuits, both against broadcast organizations and the print media, including CBS News, ABC News, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and BBC.

Despite the fact that most legal observers found the suits to be baseless, ABC News and Paramount, the parent company of CBS, settled with Trump almost exclusively on his terms. Many observers thought that this was largely because of his threats, both direct and implied, to their broadcast licenses.

The battle with the media reached its high point in September of 2026 when he announced that CNN, Politico, and MS NOW would be barred from the White House press pool and their reporters’ credentials were cancelled. Those organizations filed suit alleging the administration had violated their 1st and 5th Amendment rights.

Because of the limited space available in the White House pressroom, news organizations have typically rotated to cover news conferences forming a “pool” that will then share information with the other news agencies. News networks, including Fox News, canceled pool television coverage of some events. The New York Times and the Washington Post temporarily stopped photographing White House events.

This dispute is ongoing. All three organizations have regained access to the White House grounds but still find themselves limited in coverage of presidential events.

To be fair, not all of Trump’s complaints were without basis. During his first campaign and subsequent presidential term some stories were based on anonymous sources that later proved incorrect or overstated. Investigation into Russian election interference in 2016 was often based on speculation and political commentary was not always kept separate from news reporting.

Trump has a more cordial relationship with the conservative media, particularly Fox News. Although it is not without its rough patches. When Fox News announced on election night in 2020 that Joe Biden had won in Arizona, Trump reacted angrily. He encouraged his supporters to turn to Newsmax, and One America News Network because they supported him unconditionally and and were willing to accept his unfounded claim of election fraud. Trump often failed to distinguish between Fox’s conventional news operations and its openly partisan opinion programming, believing that any criticism of him, even factual, was fake news.

Even during his battles with mainstream media organizations Trump had an advantage that no other president previously had. He understood social media like no one else before him. Other candidates had assumed that social media was a way just to reach younger voters. Trump realized it could be used to reach across all ages, social and economic classes, and political affiliations. He used social media, particularly Twitter, to attack his enemies, make outrageous statements, and to fire up his supporters.

Trump’s Twitter account was suspended on January 8, 2021, because the company believed his posts posed a “risk of further excitement of violence“ following the January 6 attack on the capital. Twitter said the post violated its policy against glorifying violence. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat quickly followed suit.

Following his suspension from Twitter, Trump was instrumental in forming his own social media outlet, Truth Social. Even though Trump’s Twitter, now X, account was restored in November 2022, Truth Social remains his principle social media outlet.

Trump turned increasingly to social media as he discovered it freed him from editors, publishers, and most importantly, fact checkers. He began to release policy statements, discuss pending legislation and even fire administration officials via social media. Many of his posts were made obviously without review by advisors, administration officials or attorneys. At times, such as tweets about tariff rates, transgender military personnel, Obama wiretapping Trump Tower, and the now infamous memes, the White House found itself having to give elaborate, sometimes convoluted, explanations of what Trump really meant.

Trump was far from the first president to have difficulties or complaints about the press. George Washington was frequently angered by newspaper attacks. John Adams signed the sedition act of 1798 and used it to prosecute journalists critical of him and the federal government. Abraham Lincoln’s administration put restrictions on some newspapers during the civil war. John Kennedy was publicly friendly with the press but was known to exert backchannel pressure to suppress stories of which he disapproved. Prior to Trump, no president had as hostile a relationship with the press as did Richard Nixon. He maintained an enemy’s list and used Vice President Spiro Agnew as a proxy to attack newspapers and television journalists.

Trump is part of a long history of presidents who were unhappy about their news coverage. What makes him different is his constant personal attacks, direct communication through social media, litigation against news organizations and attempts to directly control access to White House news events. His actions are not merely in response to controversial policies or bad coverage, they are part of his governing philosophy, reinforce the message that established news outlets cannot be trusted and that only he will provide the truth. Unfortunately, it seems to be working.

Image generated by author using ChatGPT.

Sources

1. History Hit, “Fake News, Donald Trump’s Relationship With It and Its Chilling Effects Explained” (background on the 2017–2018 Acosta press conferences and the rise of the term “fake news”): https://www.historyhit.com/fake-news-donald-trump/

2. CBS42/AP wire report on Trump’s January 2017 press conference exchange with Jim Acosta: https://digital-release.cbs42.com/?p=97787

3. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, case tracker on Associated Press v. Budowich: https://www.rcfp.org/briefs-comments/associated-press-v-budowich/

4. Axios, “White House strikes back at AP, takes over press pool coverage from reporter group” (February 2025): https://www.axios.com/2025/02/25/white-house-trump-press-pool

5. Al Jazeera, “A ‘ban on the free press’: White House bars journalists from three outlets” (September 19, 2026): https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/19/a-ban-on-the-free-press-white-house-bars-journalists-from-three-outlets

6. CNN Business, “Major TV networks stand with CNN, decline to replace its White House pool crew” (September 20, 2026): https://www.cnn.com/2026/09/20/media/cnn-trump-white-house-pool-ban

7. CNBC, “White House pool suspends TV coverage of Trump after CNN ban” (September 21, 2026): https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/21/trump-white-house-press-pool-cnn-ban.html

8. NBC News, “As Trump separates from Fox News, what’s next for both?” (background on Trump’s relationship with Fox, Newsmax, and OAN): https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/trump-separates-fox-news-what-s-next-both-n1245549

9. The Christian Science Monitor, “Banned from Twitter, Trump launches a social media app” (February 2022): https://csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2022/0221/Banned-from-Twitter-Trump-launches-a-social-media-app

10. Al Jazeera, “Paramount agrees to pay $16m to settle Trump lawsuit over CBS interview” (July 2025): https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2025/7/2/paramount-agrees-to-pay-16m-to-settle-trump-lawsuit-over-cbs-interview

11. NewscastStudio, “ABC News will pay $16M to settle Trump defamation suit” (December 2024): https://www.newscaststudio.com/2024/12/15/abc-news-trump-settlement

12. The FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), Robert Corn-Revere, “Can the President Treat the Press as the Enemy of the People?” (historical background on the Sedition Act and Nixon): https://thefire.org/first-amendment-news-robert-corn-revere-can-the-president-treat-the-press-as-the-enemy

13. History News Network, review of Harold Holzer, “The Presidents vs. the Press” (historical comparisons involving Adams, Lincoln, T. Roosevelt, Wilson, and Nixon): https://hnn.us/article/177037

14. Inquirer.net (AP), “Remember Nixon? There’s history behind Trump’s press attacks” (February 2017): https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/872659/remember-nixon-theres-history-behind-trumps-press-attacks

15. The Bigfork Eagle, “Presidents vs. the Press” (background on FDR, the Kennedys, and the Obama administration’s dispute with Fox News): https://bigforkeagle.com/news/2018/nov/25/presidents-vs-the-press-15/

16. Wikipedia, “White House press corps” (timeline reference for the September 2026 CNN/MS NOW/Politico ban): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_press_corps