Friend, this is a longer email, but it’s important.
Over the weekend, 60 Minutes — the famed and storied CBS News broadcast — was set to air a segment about the 250 or so men that Trump sent to the CECOT torture camp in El Salvador without due process.
This segment was going to be devastating for the Trump administration. So it was pulled before it aired. Please, read on and let me explain.
Earlier this year, CBS’s parent company, Paramount, was purchased by the Ellisons, a mega-rich family that is allied with Donald Trump, has donated huge sums to Republicans, and is making billions thanks to Trump’s billionaires-first policies.
The 60 Minutes segment that was set to air was going to give the American people a real window into this administration’s cruel deportation agenda.
They rounded up Venezuelan immigrants without due process, deported them to CECOT on suspicion alone, and encouraged them to be brutally tortured and abused. Almost half of them had no criminal record or any evidence of wrongdoing. This segment was going to finally give them a voice.
But when the Ellisons took over CBS, they installed a new Editor-in-Chief. One whom they can clearly rely on to do Trump’s bidding and protect the administration from criticism. She spiked the story hours before it was set to distribute. This is a clear attempt at censorship.
The journalist who put the story together said in a statement: “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now… is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
Friend, this is a major part of Trump’s political strategy: Exercise maximum control over the press so he can avoid accountability.
Just remember how he used the FCC to try to bully ABC into firing Jimmy Kimmel. Or how he is suing the New York Times and Wall Street Journal for their factual coverage of his scandals.
Now, the Ellisons are eyeing more than just CBS. Just last week they finalized a deal that would give their company control of TikTok in the US. And Trump is now looking to oversee a sale of Warner Bros Discovery to the Ellisons as well, which controls CNN and HBO, among others.
Just imagine that: CBS, Fox News, CNN, HBO, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and hundreds of local news channels across the country, all in the hands of pro-Trump billionaires who will bend over backwards to make him happy. The free press is in serious trouble.
The job of our progressive movement must be to challenge these monopolizing billionaires and protect journalists’ ability to investigate those in power and tell the truth about their policies. If we fail to fight back, we will see more instances of what we saw at 60 Minutes, where good journalism is censored by the President and his allies.
That’s why I’m asking you today: Chip in to my campaign and help us defeat the corrupt billionaire class. Let’s win reelection here in Massachusetts so we can continue to fight for the freedom of the press and against corporate monopolies and censorship.
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There is no free press when the President can call the shots. The people demand transparency, and we are going to fight for it.
In solidarity,
Ed Markey
Paid for by The Markey Committee
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