While we’ve talked quite a bit about the horror show that is RFK Jr.’s position as Secretary of HHS, most of the focus of those posts has been around what is happening at the CDC. And for good reason, too. The ongoing measles outbreak, the quick hiring/firing of Susan Monarez, and all the anti-vaxx bullshit going on at ACIP have all occurred at the CDC, which is itself suffering from defunding, staffing shortages, and a morale problem that Kennedy personally appears to occasionally look at from afar while wondering, “Hm, how can I make this worse?”
But fear not, dear friends, because the other agencies under Kennedy are super fucked up, too! The most recent news comes from the FDA, which just lost its chief drug regulator because he appears to have been both extorting a drug company while also running a vendetta campaign against a former colleague.
However, the FDA’s latest scandal includes a different Trump-era leader: the top drug regulator, George Tidmarsh, who left the FDA this weekend amid a flurry of events. The drama centers around allegations that, since joining the FDA in July, Tidmarsh used his position to exact petty revenge on an old business associate, Kevin Tang, who had asked Tidmarsh to resign from three companies six years ago, allegedly sparking a long-standing grudge.
Aurinia Pharmaceuticals, with Tang on its board, sued Tidmarsh recently over these allegations. And that lawsuit contains details as to what actions Tidmarsh took against Tang and his company. Those actions, if true, are almost too much to be believed.
The lawsuit contains brow-raising texts and emails from Tidmarsh to Tang and associates over the last six years, documenting taunts and threats, including “enjoying failure?”, “You will be exposed,” there’s “[m]ore bad karma to come,” “[t]he pain is not over,” and an ominous “I’m Not powerless.”
In early August, soon after joining the FDA, Tidmarsh announced actions that would effectively remove from the market a drug ingredient made by a company associated with Tang. Tidmarsh’s lawyer then sent a letter to Tang proposing that he extend a “service agreement” for “another 10 years,” which would see Tang making payments to a Tidmarsh-associated entity until 2044. The email was seen as attempted extortion, with such payments being in exchange for Tidmarsh rolling back the FDA’s regulatory change.
And then after that, in September, Tidmarsh hopped over to LinkedIn, of all places, to post publicly about how an Aurinia drug for treating lupus, already FDA-approved, didn’t work and that Aurinia hadn’t put the drug through the trials to prove it did. Aurinia’s stock fell by twenty percent that same day. But the drug had gone through FDA trials and was already approved for use in many, many other countries.
Tidmarsh resigned Sunday as the media shitstorm over all of this was kicking up. And that’s good; Tidmarsh has no business being in government in a role that is supposed to serve public health. But what this really represents is yet another data point in the circus that HHS and its child agencies have become under Kennedy’s leadership.
If the allegations in Aurinia’s lawsuit are true, Tidmarsh’s behavior would be egregious for a federal regulator. But already, the claims and other scandals have outsiders concerned that the high-stakes “soap opera” is destroying the agency’s credibility, as Stat reported Tuesday.
“We are witnessing nothing less than a clown show at FDA right now,” one venture capital investor told the outlet. “For the sake of patients, we need a stable and consistent FDA!”
“What’s happening at the top of the FDA is embarrassing,” a portfolio manager at a large biotech fund added. “How am I supposed to convince people, other investors, that this sector is doing important work when the leaders of the FDA are acting this way?”
There’s a solution and we all know what it is. A competent leader at HHS that can yank our public health agencies back into some semblance of professionalism would do wonders here.
But we’re not going to get that so long as RFK Jr. is at HHS.
For all its talk about trimming down government spending, an untold amount of money has been blown just to keep one person from getting one over on the Trump administration.
That man would be Kilmar Abrego Garcia. He became the poster boy for the regime’s bigotry when he fought back against his sudden deportation to El Salvador’s most infamous prison.
Abrego Garcia is Salvadoran. He fled that country and sought asylum in the United States. There were reasons he didn’t want to be sent back there. Not that the Trump administration cared. It just wanted him out and was willing to send him to a torture prison run by a self-admitted dictator. The administration made a lot of questionable claims about Garcia’s supposed MS-13 gang activity to justify flying him out to a receptive hellhole.
Abrego Garcia fought back. And he has proven to be a constant embarrassment for a government overrun by mouth-breathing bullies. Garcia managed to get un-ejected from the country, exposing multiple lies told by the government while doing so. For that, he was punished further. The administration brought him back just so it could throw him in an American prison, claiming he was involved in all sorts of hideous crimes.
A court reasonably found that this was vindictive prosecution. It also ordered Abrego Garcia’s release. But the government fought back with an absurd (and hideous) trial tax: Garcia could either plead guilty to the (pun intentional?) trumped-up charges or get hurled into a war-torn country where human rights are nearly nonexistent.
The Trump administration has moved to dissolve the ban on Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s removal so that it can proceed with his deportation to Liberia.
In a series of filings overnight, government attorneys said that the Salvadoran native’s claim of fear of torture or persecution in the African nation was denied after he was interviewed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services last week.
The attorneys for the Department of Justice argued that the preliminary injunction blocking Abrego Garcia’s removal to Liberia should be dissolved because the government received assurances from the government of the West African country that he will not be persecuted or tortured.
Yep, that’s how it’s going in the purported Land of the Free that has spent the past few days stroking itself off in celebration of Veterans Day. American troops, who have done everything they can to prevent foreign countries from becoming what the Trump administration desires to be, are being celebrated for protecting the freedoms this regime considers to be mere privileges.
And let’s all enjoy a long disgusted LOL at the government’s assertions. Liberia’s government is corrupt AF and any assurances it might make about some rando should not be trusted. And, again, if the real reason (as stated multiple times by the administration) is to remove this “dangerous criminal” from the US, what’s wrong with sending him to Costa Rica? The government has already said it will take custody of Abrego Garcia, and it would be another “win” for the administration to add another person to its “self-deportation” column.
But we all know what’s really happening here. The Trump administration wants to punish Abrego Garcia for making them look bad. And sending him to a country he’s agreed to go to doesn’t do that. They need him to feel endangered to make it clear to others who might stand up to having their own civil liberties and rights violated, that they, too, may face similar risks. Abrego Garcia spoke out against the injustices the Trump administration rained down upon him, and for that he must pay.
This constant hate-on is considered a feature, not a bug, by the so-called representatives of the Free World. It’s abhorrent and it should be a constant stain on their legislative histories. Unfortunately, there are no adults with any semblance of a conscience left in the GOP, so we’ll get what we get for as long as people who stroke themselves off to the National Anthem continue to believe this nation’s path to greatness involves destroying everyone’s humanity, including their own.
On Friday it was announced that my alma mater, Cornell, had caved to the Trump administration and agreed to a “deal” the federal government had offered them to get back the funding it had illegally cut off from Cornell as part of its authoritarian efforts to bully top universities into submission. This capitulation came just days after the American electorate showed that they were in strong agreement that the Donald Trump regime is out of control and needs to be stopped. Doing this now suggests that the administration at Cornell has no business running a top university.
Techdirt wouldn’t exist without Cornell University. I started the seeds of what became Techdirt directly while a student there, and much of the framework through which I view innovation and tech policy came from working with certain professors. I’m taking a moment here to explain why this matters to me personally, because the lessons I learned there make Cornell’s failure all the more painful. As a teaching assistant for both Don Greenberg (who appears to still be going at age 91!) and Alan McAdams (who passed away in 2013) I learned to think deeply about innovation, business models, and policy.
Greenberg taught me how to better understand the trajectories of technological innovation (in 1996 he tasked me with thinking through the implications of both widespread broadband adoption—at a time when most people were still on dial-up modems—as well as the impact of widespread access to digital photography). McAdams, on the other hand, introduced me to the concept of open source software, and pushed me to help him think through why open source software and universal, people-owned broadband access were both wholly compatible with (and, in fact, advantageous to) free market innovation.
McAdams also directly encouraged me to start writing about these ideas and to create a website about them, which eventually gave me the confidence to put together Techdirt. I would sit in McAdams’ office for hours while he’d sit there, in a suit, but while wearing sneakers with the laces untied, going on and on about how too many people didn’t understand how open access and open systems were the secret weapon against tech monopolies. He would talk about how you could use the centrality of tech monopolies against them, by targeting them with open systems.
One other professor who helped shape me was Professor James Gross (who appears to have just retired a few years ago, but appears to still be writing) who taught an incredibly impactful class on “values.” I ended up taking multiple other classes with him and used to go to his office hours way too often, where he was always kind and willing to chat. One of the key lessons Gross taught me was that values aren’t relative. You can’t say “well, that’s different” as an excuse for compromising. If you were compromising your values, you didn’t really have values.
Cornell has compromised its values, proving it doesn’t have them. In their announcement regarding this capitulation, University President Michael Kotlikoff tries to argue that they didn’t really fold, and he asks that everyone read the agreement “in its entirety” before reacting.
And, it is true that the agreement is much less onerous and ridiculous than the ones signed by Columbia, UVA, and Brown (or the one proposed with Harvard). UCLA law professor Joey Fishkin notes that rather than supporting the bullshit racist anti-DEI policies that the Trump admin has demanded of other universities, Cornell only agreed that it would provide that racist nonsense “as a training resource” to faculty and staff.
The incredible shrinking attack on U.S. universities continues.Cornell has signed an agreement—but unlike the UVA agreement, instead of pledging to follow the gov't's highly questionable July "guidance" on discrimination, Cornell simply agrees to hand it out to faculty as a "training resource"!
Fishkin’s right that Cornell avoided the worst demands—the explicitly racist requirements that other schools accepted. But even this “lighter” version creates serious problems, because capitulation is capitulation regardless of degree. The settlement still includes terms no self-respecting university with values should agree to. It is paying the federal government $30 million for no reason at all. It also is going to hand over “anonymized” admissions data to Trump’s thugs:
Cornell shall provide the United States with anonymized undergraduate admissions data consistent with 34 C.F.R. § 100.6 and similar regulations broken down by Cornell’s individual colleges and schools, race, grade point average, and performance on standardized tests, on a quarterly basis, in a form permitting statistical analyses for each year of the Agreement. Admissions data will also be subjected to a comprehensive audit by the United States. This information will be maintained confidentially and exempt from public disclosure and subject to pre-disclosure notification and an opportunity to object to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, to the fullest extent possible by law
There’s no such thing as truly “anonymized” data at this scale—a fact multiple Cornell professors in the relevant fields could explain to the administration. The settlement language itself reveals the problem: data “broken down by Cornell’s individual colleges and schools, race, grade point average, and performance on standardized tests” creates enough granularity that re-identification becomes trivial. But the bigger issue is that this data will enable the federal government to insist that Cornell is not being racist enough, meaning that further demands, and further capitulation is to be expected.
You can see the calculation Cornell made here. There were hundreds of millions of dollars in grant money that were being illegally blocked by Trump as part of his and his minions’ bullying. So paying $30 million to get back way more seems worth it. Agreeing to hand out racist nonsense as “guidance” rather than demands, and forking over “anonymized data” feels like a small price to pay to get these goons off your back.
But that calculation is based on a false premise: that the Trump administration will now leave Cornell alone. They’ve shown no signs of actually doing that. Authoritarian regimes don’t reward capitulation with restraint—they take it as permission to demand more. And more. Beyond that, the administration itself is weak and has been losing battle after battle. And the election last week showed how incredibly unpopular they are. To cave now gives a weak administration a desperately needed win, allowing it to get back off the ground when it was down.
On top of all that, as a university that claims to have values that it seeks to instill in its students, capitulating to such obviously bullshit bullying wipes out any belief that the University stands for anything real at all.
Finally, as Fishkin also notes, the lighter weight details of this agreement suggest that the Trump regime itself was desperate for a win… and Cornell just handed it to them.
But I am really struck by the rapidity and scale of the government's retreat from its much more extensive and destructive list of demands that it tried to impose on schools at the start of this mess.It would be far better if Cornell and other schools simply said "no."But still, a notable shift.
Cornell here has not modeled values. It has modeled cowardice and capitulation, and it’s a stain that should remain on the university going forward. What does this teach current students about institutional courage? What message does it send to faculty who might face similar pressure? What signal does it give to other universities watching this play out? Cornell had a choice between its stated values and expedience, and it chose expedience. That choice will define this administration’s legacy.
We’ll see where this goes from here, but for the moment, this order [PDF], issued by federal judge Karin Immergut still stands:
For the above reasons, this Court concludes that Plaintiffs have demonstrated that Defendants violated 10 U.S.C. § 12406 and the Tenth Amendment and satisfy the requirements for a permanent injunction. Therefore, this Court PERMANENTLY ENJOINS Defendants Pete Hegseth, the U.S. Department of Defense, Kristi Noem, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security from […] federalizing and deploying members of the National Guard in Oregon
This has already happened once. And, for reasons that went mostly unexplained by two of three judges ruling in favor of the administration, a stay was issued that allowed it to continue exploring its martial law options in a city Trump has already admitted he might have been lied to about in terms of civil unrest.
The judges blocking the injunction basically said we have to trust the government, even when it’s obviously lying to us — something pointed out in the sharp dissent written by the third judge in the case (Susan Graber). Her dissent noted that most of the protest involved people wearing inflatable animal costumes (and, memorably, nothing at all). It also noted the absolute dearth of calls from law enforcement for backup when dealing with Portland’s (non-threatening) protesters. Her dissent also pointed out how none of this could possibly add up to the clear and present danger the administration has used to justify the deployment of National Guard troops.
Judge Immergut makes many of the same points: there’s no real threat, the protests have been almost exclusively peaceful, and the government has lied so often it should not be granted judicial deference. The 106-page order practically dares the Ninth Circuit to again ignore the facts on the ground when it is inevitably appealed by the federal government.
For example, here’s the judge taking the government down a few notches (and suggesting contempt findings are perhaps just as inevitable as the administration’s routine disregard for legal precedent) for pretending it didn’t have time to comply with the first order while it simultaneously scrambled troops from out-of-state in an attempt to skirt the expected restraining order:
Ordinarily, this Court would be inclined to accept Defendants’ explanation for their violation of the First TRO [temporary restraining order] given that “the first shift” at the Portland ICE facility commenced prior to this Court’s issuance of the First TRO. However, in light of the following facts, this Court is deeply troubled by Defendants’ continued deployment of Oregon National Guardsmen at the Portland ICE facility in violation of the First TRO. In the seven hours that Defendants took to “convey the message” of the First TRO “to people on the ground,” Defendants simultaneously “convey[ed] the message” to the U.S. Army Northern Command to send 200 of the federalized California National Guard personnel in Los Angeles to Portland. In other words, Defendants had time to order and coordinate the transport of federalized California National Guardsmen from Los Angeles to Portland but needed more time to communicate with the Oregon National Guardsmen at the Portland ICE facility.
The dissent to the Ninth Circuit opinion — combined with the administration’s attempt to circumvent the court order blocking deployment of Oregon National Guard troops by sending in a bunch of troops from other states — has resulted in a successful petition for an en banc hearing by Judge Susan Graber. That means the government is far less likely to see its bluster, outright lies, and end around plays entertained by a far more representative group of Ninth Circuit judges.
Furthermore, the alleged “escalation” cited by the Trump administration is simply a lie, as those who’ve been on the ground (Portland Police Bureau officials) have already (credibly, according to the court) testified:
Any riotous activity affecting the Portland ICE building peaked in June and had subsided for months before the President’s September 27, 2025 callout of the National Guard to Oregon. Regarding the nature of the crowd and its behavior, this Court finds the following. First, the size of the crowds decreased dramatically from June to September. Second, the number of officers briefly increased in response to the peak activity in mid-June, but it quickly subsided and remained at a low steady state until September 27, 2025. Third, the crowd was not directed by an organized group. Fourth, members of the crowd were rarely armed. Fifth and finally, the crowd’s shift in focus from the ICE building and the federal personnel in June to counter protester disputes in September demonstrates that much of the activity since mid-June had little to no effect on the ICE building and federal operations.
And these are things that were happening most of time, according to local law enforcement leaders:
From September 19 to September 28, immediately before the National Guard callout, there was “[n]othing much” going on outside the ICE building. Throughout the protests, PPB Commander Schoening testified that protesters wore “inflatable costumes.” Similarly, PPB Assistant Chief Dobson described “folks in costumes” at the ICE Facility, as well as “other almost festive-type events going on down there,” including “dance parties.”
Also: the government — the federal government, that is — can’t seem to stop lying:
To the extent that it lacks corroboration from other sources of evidence, the Court does not find reliable ICE/ERO Field Office Director Wamsley’s characterization of the damage to the Portland ICE Facility, which suggested damage was more extensive than that which is reflected in the rest of the record.
[…]
There is no credible evidence, however, that all the doors and windows of the ICE facility were broken. No other witness described damage to this degree, including Commander W.T., who was at the Portland ICE Facility every other week the entire summer. Additionally, Director Wamsley testified that she did not know whether there would be any photos of this damage or whether there was any documentation of the repair estimates.
It does it all the time, even when it has to know its lies will be exposed:
Furthermore, PPB reporting from June 14 show additional inconsistencies in the federal government’s version of events. PPB Captain Schoening’s activity log documented: “ICE calling saying they are barricaded in the building and fire lit. Difficult to get accurate information from them. What they say is happening is frequently contradicted by video feeds and subsequent activity. Air 1 shows no fire.” Also, shortly after they reported being barricaded, PPB observed an FPS employee exit a door and noted that FPS “ha[d] been using th[at] door regularly for employee ingress/egress. Th[at] door was reported earlier to be barricaded.”
You think that’s bad? Get ready for this one:
FPS [Federal Protective Services] reported a fire to PPB, but the “fire” turned out to be candles lit for a vigil set up by demonstrators.
In fact, most of the “violence” observed by federal officers was either unprovoked attacks by officers against protesters or instigated by Trump fans who rolled up on peaceful protests in hopes of picking a fight.
This Court finds that many reported disturbances at the ICE Facility after July 4 did not involve law enforcement at all. This Court also received evidence regarding disruptive behavior between individuals within the vicinity of the ICE building since June. Specifically, this Court received evidence regarding altercations between protesters and counter-protesters. Based on that evidence, this Court finds the following: Violence between protesters and counter-protesters occurred outside the Portland ICE building from June to September 27, 2025, but had, at most, a minimal effect on federal law enforcement’s protection of the building and federal personnel.
106 pages. Read it all. Lie after lie after lie from the administration and the small team of DOJ lawyers still willing to appease Trump, rather than seek justice:
As related to the time period immediately before the President’s callout of the National Guard, this Court heard testimony from FPS officers that PPB does not respond to their requests and that FPS stopped calling PPB altogether. The Court does not find this testimony to be credible.
[…]
The Court finds that there is no credible evidence that protest activities at the ICE facility created more than a minimal interference with Defendants’ ability to enforce Title 8 immigration laws in Portland. Director Wamsley testified herself that “altercations between protesters” do not “inhibit the execution of federal immigration law.”
There’s no “rebellion” happening here, the judge says, quoting the same law the administration is now abusing on a regular basis. There’s no concerted effort to seize control of federal property. There are no persistent attacks on federal or local law enforcement. There’s no organized group hoping to seize power. This is exactly the sort of thing this particular administration is incapable of handing: a persistent display of opposition that rarely, if ever, engages in the sort of behavior that might justify the deployment of military troops. The protesters are a fly the government can’t swat, whose mere existence is annoying enough the Commander-in-Chief and his immediate underlings have to constantly lie about to salvage their unconstitutional acts. And, despite all of their power, they’re losing this battle. Let’s see if the Ninth Circuit is willing to make this loss permanent.
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Reagan-appointed federal judge Mark Wolf has resigned from the bench in Massachusetts, and his explanation is blunt: he can no longer bear the ethical constraints that prevent judges from speaking out publicly while Trump dismantles the rule of law.
This doesn’t happen. Federal judges—especially Reagan appointees—don’t quit to become activists. They stay in their robes and let careful rulings speak for themselves. Wolf’s resignation is the judicial equivalent of breaking the glass on a fire alarm.
Wolf watched all of that and concluded the constraints of judicial office were now intolerable.
My reason is simple: I no longer can bear to be restrained by what judges can say publicly or do outside the courtroom. President Donald Trump is using the law for partisan purposes, targeting his adversaries while sparing his friends and donors from investigation, prosecution, and possible punishment. This is contrary to everything that I have stood for in my more than 50 years in the Department of Justice and on the bench. The White House’s assault on the rule of law is so deeply disturbing to me that I feel compelled to speak out. Silence, for me, is now intolerable.
Wolf’s full explanation is worth reading in detail. He methodically establishes his credentials—50 years in the DOJ and on the bench—and documents his consistent refusal to let partisan politics influence his work. The examples matter because they show this isn’t some late-career partisan turn. Then he explains why silence became impossible:
As I watched in dismay and disgust from my position on the bench, I came to feel deeply uncomfortable operating under the necessary ethical rules that muzzle judges’ public statements and restrict their activities. Day after day, I observed in silence as President Trump, his aides, and his allies dismantled so much of what I dedicated my life to.
What follows is a systematic takedown of Trump’s corruption of prosecutorial discretion and his attack on the Constitution and the rule of law:
As much as I have treasured being a judge, I can now think of nothing more important than joining them, and doing everything in my power to combat today’s existential threat to democracy and the rule of law.
What Nixon did episodically and covertly, knowing it was illegal or improper, Trump now does routinely and overtly. Prosecutorial decisions during this administration are a prime example. Because even a prosecution that ends in an acquittal can have devastating consequences for the defendant, as a matter of fairness Justice Department guidelines instruct prosecutors not to seek an indictment unless they believe there is sufficient admissible evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Trump has utterly ignored this principle. In a social-media post, he instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek indictments against three political adversaries even though the officials in charge of the investigations at the time saw no proper basis for doing so. It has been reported that New York Attorney General Letitia James was prosecuted for mortgage fraud after Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, one of Donald Trump’s former criminal-defense lawyers, questioned the legal viability of bringing charges against James. Former FBI Director James Comey was charged after the interim U.S. attorney who had been appointed by Trump refused to seek an indictment and was forced to resign. Senator Adam Schiff, the third target of Trump’s social-media post, has yet to be charged.
Trump is also dismantling the offices that could and should investigate possible corruption by him and those in his orbit. Soon after he was inaugurated, Trump fired, possibly unlawfully, 18 inspectors general who were responsible for detecting and deterring fraud and misconduct in major federal agencies. The FBI’s public-corruption squad also has been eliminated. The Department of Justice’s public-integrity section has been eviscerated, reduced from 30 lawyers to only five, and its authority to investigate election fraud has been revoked.
Wolf doesn’t stop there. The piece catalogs Trump’s broader assault: the unlawful executive orders, the attacks on judges who’ve ruled against him, and the constellation of enablers making it all possible. This isn’t judicial restraint—it’s a prosecutor laying out a case.
If you’re worried that Trump will get to appoint his replacement, he notes that’s actually not true in this case:
When I became a senior judge in 2013, my successor was appointed, so my resignation will not create a vacancy to be filled by the president.
More importantly, Wolf’s making clear this resignation isn’t symbolic retreat—it’s tactical:
I resigned in order to speak out, support litigation, and work with other individuals and organizations dedicated to protecting the rule of law and American democracy. I also intend to advocate for the judges who cannot speak publicly for themselves.
Read the full piece, which has way more than I discussed here. Wolf’s not mincing words or hiding behind careful judicial language anymore.
Not surprisingly, the White House mocked Judge Wolf as trying to pursue a “personal agenda,” while encouraging any other judges who feel similarly to resign as well.
The actual reality is what Wolf documented across dozens of paragraphs: Trump is systematically destroying constitutional constraints on executive power, dismantling the offices that could investigate corruption, and prosecuting political enemies while protecting allies. Calling that a “personal agenda” is exactly the kind of authoritarian gaslighting Wolf quit to fight.
Wolf has the courage Trump’s entire administration lacks. And this is a moment where we need more public displays of courage like this. So kudos to Judge Wolf for speaking out so clearly.
You might recall that not that long ago Trump managed to get CBS to pay him a $16 million bribe based entirely on a lie: that the network’s 60 Minutes program had unfairly edited an interview with Kamala Harris. In reality it was a minor, ordinary edit, and CBS could have easily fought the case and won. Instead, they folded like damp cardboard and kissed the ring, which has been a media trend.
Clearly emboldened by his success at bullying weak-kneed U.S. media outlets, Trump has now taken aim at the BBC for some edits made to a documentary about Trump’s violent insurrection attempt. The documentary in question, “Panorama,” mashed together two parts of Trump’s speech clearly encouraging his followers to storm the Capitol on January 6, 2021:
“The edit spliced together two sections of Trump’s speech, making it seem like he said: “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you and we fight. We fight like hell and if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not gonna have a country anymore.”
In reality Trump said “We’re gonna walk down to the Capitol and I’ll be with you” 15 minutes into the speech but “and we fight. We fight like hell” came 54 minutes later.”
So yes, while Trump’s intent was clear either way, it wasn’t the wisest editorial choice knowing Trump’s litigious nature. If you’re going to take aim at this lawsuit-happy con man, you really should have your ducks carefully lined up in a row.
“The conclusion of that deliberation is that we accept that the way the speech was edited did give the impression of a direct call for violent action. The BBC would like to apologize for that error of judgement.”
Buried by this apology tour was the fact that nobody even noticed this “scandal” or cared about the edits until it was created by the right wing Daily Telegraph. Another in a long line of right wing propaganda outlets that routinely engage in far worse, and far more problematic behaviors that rarely see any sort of accountability, creating a lopsided media landscape that endlessly favors the right wing.
You can see in real time how the threats by Trump really do have their intended impact: they disorient journalism and suppress the truth. Trump wants a press that kisses his ass. If he can’t have that, he wants a “both sides” oriented press that’s too afraid to point out factual reality. And he’s getting it.
This New York Times coverage of the BBC fracas can’t even be bothered to mention this “scandal” was started by a right wing tabloid. More curiously, the outlet can’t be bothered to mention that there really was a violent insurrection that the President really did pretty clearly openly support after endlessly stoking completely baseless election conspiracy theories. Kind of important context.
You can be apologetic for errors in judgement (in a way that lessons your legal exposure) without validating the criminal president, turning into a pile of feckless jelly, and burying the fact this was a fake scandal nobody would have cared about if not for the gamesmanship of right wing media.
