Today, Explained - Stop the press!

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

From Stephen Colbert to Rupert Murdoch, powerful media figures are in President Trump’s crosshairs. And in many cases, Trump is getting his way. This episode was produced by Avishay Artsy, edited by Jolie Myers, fact checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd, and hosted by Noel King. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Transcript at vox.com/today-explained-podcast. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I can finally speak unvarnished truth to power and say what I really think about Donald Trump, starting right now. Everyone's wondering why CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Stephen Colbert is wondering, how could it purely be a financial decision if The Late Show is number one in ratings? A lot of folks. Jon Stewart is wondering, the fact that CBS didn't try to save their number one rated network late night franchise that's been on the air for over three decades is part of what's making everybody wonder,

was this purely financial? Jimmy Fallon wondering... I don't like it. I don't like what's going on one bit. These are crazy times. Elizabeth Warren is asking questions. Sean won't stop sending links. On Today Explained, we may never really know whether CBS canceled Colbert because politics or because his show was losing money. But President Trump is hitting at the media

in so many ways that it's been hard to keep track of them all. We're going to make it easier coming up. I'm Noelle King. David Falkenfleck is with me now. David is NPR's longtime media correspondent and he wrote a book called Murdoch's World about the man who owns the Wall Street Journal. All right, so let's go back to last Thursday night. President Trump supporters have been demanding the release of the Epstein files.

Everyone's on edge or in Reddit looking for proof of something. And then... Then the Wall Street Journal breaks a story that does not show any criminal wrongdoing by Trump, but it certainly shows a coziness between Trump and perhaps the most notorious convicted sex offender in the nation's recent history, Jeffrey Epstein, by relaying a description of a doodle, a kind of obscene doodle, and a note that the president is said to have sent two decades ago on the occasion of Epstein's 50th birthday. Now, according to the journal, also the letter contains, quote, several lines of typewritten

text framed by the outline of a naked woman, which appears to be hand drawn with a heavy marker. A pair of small arcs denotes the woman's breasts and the future president's signature is a squiggly Donald below her waist mimicking pubic hair. The letter concludes happy birthday and may every day be another wonderful secret. Trump had then posted, you know, essentially that he had told Rupert Murdoch this wasn't true. The Wall Street Journal printed a fake letter,

supposedly to Epstein. These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don't draw pictures. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a scam and that he should not print this fake story, but he did. And now I'm going to sue his ass off and that of his third rate newspaper. Thank you for your attention to this matter. The president's press secretary said much the same publicly on Friday, and Trump delivered

on his promise. He's suing the Wall Street Journal, he's suing Rupert Murdoch, which is an extraordinary turn of affairs for these two powerful figures, two titanic figures on the American landscape, particularly of the right, who have been allied for a decade and now are, you know, at least legally at loggerheads. SONIA DARAGOS You wrote a very well-regarded book about Rupert Murdoch. Let me ask you something on behalf of the skeptics. Donald Trump says that birthday letter is not real, that it's not my writing.

Could it ever be true that the Wall Street Journal would claim this exists if it doesn't? Is there any potential? You know, I want to remain agnostic on all kinds of things until we've seen it. We have not, for example, seen a replica of the doodle or the note itself. And that's, you know, I think something a lot of people are looking for. On the other hand, I would say The Wall Street Journal has decades-long tradition preceding Rupert Murdoch, but including the proprietorship and owner of Rupert Murdoch since he bought the paper in 2007, of doing incredible work

and having amazing lawyers. And amazing lawyers do two things. They can fight ferociously in court, but they also review things with, from what's been described to me by editors and reporters I've talked to over the years, with a very careful degree of scrutiny. I don't think you publish something like this without feeling that you are confident that this is accurate and that this is fair.

Do you have any insight into why the Wall Street Journal wouldn't just show a picture of it, of the letter, of the doodle? It's one of the great questions the day that the journal has not so far answered publicly. And one would imagine that either they have it and will produce it or that they will get it and produce it. But there are worlds in which there could be some watermark on it. It could be part of some legal proceeding that we don't know about. It could have come from some source where to reproduce it would somehow reveal either

the source or a small pool of people from whom it could have come. All right. So what does President Trump want to get out of a lawsuit against the Journal and Rupert Murdoch? What's the aim? Well, the aim is probably multifold. The aim is to exact vengeance against news organizations that dare to report troubling things about him in the second term when he has really fully blossomed the idea that that he is the executive, the executive is all-powerful, and he is all-powerful and people should not fall on the wrong side of him. What this does on the outset is saying to his supporters,

you don't have to pay attention to this. This is bullshit. Hmm. What it does is that it, I think, expands the universe of the press that he's essentially designating as not trustworthy. CNN is scum. And so is MSDNC.

They're all. And frankly, the networks aren't much better. It's all fake news but... It's very consistent with what he said to Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes many years ago when he was first running for president, which is, why do you do this? Why do you call us the fake news? Why do you attack us preemptively?

And he said, you know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you. And I think it serves as a warning for other news organizations, particularly ones that might be more sympathetic or more political in nature in his favor,

not to do things that might discomfort him, because even the great Rupert Murdoch can come under his thumb. David, in addition to the lawsuits, Trump has also barred the Wall Street Journal from the press pool on a trip that he's taking to Scotland. For people who are not reporters, what's the significance of that? Well, it's essentially saying, I get to dictate who gets to cover me on behalf of the American people.

And it's intended to be a warning, as he did for the Associated Press. Let's remember that. It was, you know, what, 60 years and just a few months ago that the president said to the Associated Press, you can't cover me in Oval Office events in smaller settings because... The Associated Press just refuses to go with what the law is and what is taking place. It's called the Gulf of America now. It's not called the Gulf of Mexico any longer. Marc Thiessen And so he punished the Associated Press. And although Judge ruled mostly against

him, basically, Trump is able to prevail. It's his White House in certain smaller settings, you know, they can't force the AP inside. And Trump's saying, I don't care who you're owned by, I'm willing to do this to any of you. And they're doing us no favors, and I guess I'm not doing them any favors. That's the way life works. What other media organizations has the president punished in the last, I don't know, 18 months and how?

So look, the president, as a private citizen, before taking office in January, he sued ABC and CBS. And without having to go through all the details, he got their parent companies to pay up, you know, $15, $16 million each toward his future presidential library on cases that were seen by legal scholars as certainly winnable in the case of CBS, just, you know, somewhat farcical. He alleged in an interview last year that his former rival, Kamala Harris, did this interview on CBS's 60 Minutes and that it was deceptively edited

in a way that helped her and hurt him. She gave an answer that was so bad that they changed it. The outlet maintains they edited the interview for clarity and length. He also won significant money from Metta and from Twitter, from X. President Trump has signed an agreement with Metta to settle a lawsuit that he filed against the company and its CEO for suspending his account after the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Twitter cited the risk of Trump inciting further violence as part of an effort to remain in

the White House. Trump claimed Twitter violated his First Amendment right to free speech. He's gone to the courts. His regulator, Brendan Carr, elevated to be the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, has opened formal inquiries or investigations of every single major network in the country except the Fox Broadcast Network, which is owned of course by Rupert Murdoch, who has been at least until now a major ally of the president on the political right.

He has gone after PBS and NPR. The order directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies to stop funding national public radio and PBS. It's to stop what Trump is calling biased and partisan news coverage. God, the list goes on and on. It's like, it's almost like who hasn't he done this to, right? So there are ways in which he's targeted that seems small, but there's an effort to say not only that the press is somehow an outside and critical force, but that it is an enemy

at the gates and we don't want to let it inside. And it strikes me that you can't really interpret this without viewing this as an effort to control almost any source of independent or outside information that could allow people to draw their own conclusions that run in a contrary decision than the president. I've been turned, I don't know about how you feel, but I've been turned in basically a full-time legal reporter. I cover the media since 2000. Never have I found myself reading court records more.

Never have I found myself in more courts in different courtrooms, federal, state,, courtrooms, federal, state, different parts, you know, New York and Washington, having to, you know, follow stuff in Florida. Like, there has just been a lot. And it's part of where we're at right now. And Trump is like, you know what, I'm going to lead the charge on that. I'm going to, not only that, I'm going to model how you can go after the press. David Folkenflick is NPR's media correspondent.

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required. See website for details, restrictions and important safety information. details, restrictions, and important safety information. Call your cable provider and kindly demand that today's explain is added to your lineup. Call and subscribe today. We're back with Matt Bellany. Matt is a founding partner of Puck and he's host of the Town podcast. Recently owing to drama, Matt has been writing quite a bit about CBS's CB Mess, starting with the president suing over that interview with Kamala Harris that he claimed was deceptively

edited. That lawsuit ended with a $16 million settlement by CBS and no admission of guilt or apology. But the message in that settlement was that Trump can bring what most observers believed was a frivolous lawsuit against a media company and extract a pretty big settlement if that company needs something out of the federal government. And in this case, CBS very much needs the FCC to approve the transfer of its license to Skydance to close that $8 billion transaction. Here at CBS, our parent company Paramount Global has agreed to a multi-billion dollar

deal to merge with the production company Skydance Media. The deal makes Skydance founder David Ellison a new Hollywood power player. But it also lands him with a host of challenges. And there was a lot of speculation as you just said that this was the reason CBS settled. What do you think? Is that right? Yeah, I think CBS 100% settled the Trump litigation rather than taking it to trial because they need this transaction to close. And the Trump administration made it pretty clear that closing this transaction was helped along by paying the settlement money to the president.

CBS News is a pretty old-school straight-arrow news organization. What was the response from that newsroom when their parent company Paramount settled? The response at CBS News has been pretty alarmed, I would say, both internally and in the public sphere. We've seen the two executives at CBS News quit over this issue. We've seen big CBS News talent like Leslie Stahl and Steve Croft go public with criticisms of the deal. Sherry Redstone, who is the head of Paramount. She's the owner of Paramount.

Right, she wants to sell it. Yes. She has a couple of billion dollars. They've got like an eight billion dollar deal on the table. Yes, and two billion dollars she's going to get. So she wanted the sale to go through. It's been a very traumatic time for CBS News through this whole process, and it doesn't look like it's over yet.

That deal has still not been approved. Why has it not been approved yet? The FCC has the power to review the transfer of broadcast licenses. It has pretty broad discretion over the reasons for not approving it. If they determine that the broadcaster is not acting in the public interest, then they can hold up this deal pretty much indefinitely. There's no appeals process, there's nothing that someone can do if the FCC decides to sit on a broadcast transfer. So Brendan Carr, the chair

of the FCC, has he has made it very clear that he's not a fan of DEI programs. The Biden administration has pressed the FCC to break hard left and it has. The Biden administration has put ideology over smart policy. He believes that CBS News has a bias against conservatives. There's a lot of people in this country right now on the radical left that are upset about this investigation into CBS and the work that I'm doing on broadcasters. And he has been quizzing the powers that be as both Skydance and Paramount about those policies and about the news direction. And he wants some kinds of concessions in order to approve this deal. On top of that, President Trump likes to punish people. So I hear you saying there's a chance here that Paramount, that Sherry Redstone still

does not get what she wants. There is a small chance. I think what has been happening over the past few months, and the fact that Sherry Redstone is also a Republican donor and a friend of President Trump. I think all of those facts are going to coalesce around this deal getting approved, but not before Trump has exacted his pound of flesh, so to speak. All right, so you have the CBS newsroom pushing back, people resigning, retiring, and then a prominent public critic of Trump's gets his show canceled on CBS.

Oh, hey, everybody. When did you learn they were taking Stephen Colbert's late show off the air? I learned when everyone else did. Yeah. It was a total surprise. Before we start the show, I want wanna let you know something that I found out just last night. Next year will be our last season.

The network will be ending The Late Show in May. No! And... It's an odd thing because CBS has been discussing the future of its late night properties for a long time. And the economics of late night are pretty bad. The Late Show was losing tens of millions of dollars a year. It still is.

The 1230s show, James Corden. Sh-da-da-da-da-da-da. Are you ready? That was canceled when Corden left the show. It was replaced by a show that was about half as expensive to produce. Hello. I'm Taylor Tomlinson. And welcome to the last episode of After Midnight.

And then that show went away when the host decided that she didn't want to do it. Colbert has been under the microscope for a long time. Late Show was the leader in the category, but it was only averaging about 2.5 million viewers a night, down significantly from what we all remember as the CBS host. Both Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel have big digital footprints. Their bits and stunts and monologues, those travel online a lot further

than the Colbert monologue does because they have tried and really emphasized those platforms. So you have Stephen Colbert with about 10 million YouTube followers, subscribers. Jimmy Fallon has triple that. Jimmy Kimmel has double that. The average age of a Stephen Colbert viewer is 68 years old. Wow. Yeah, but all of linear television is getting older, older, older, and Colbert

was at the tip of that spear. So it is possible that politics did not have anything to do with this. I wouldn't say it had nothing to do with this. Okay. I think the cloud that has been hovering over CBS certainly informed the climate in which this decision was made, but I don't think the primary motivator for canceling a big franchise like this was the momentary politics. I do think the economics played a large factor, an overwhelming factor in this decision. How has Stephen Colbert handled this?

What is he saying? Colbert has been very classy about this, no surprise there. I do want to say that the folks at CBS have been great partners. He addressed his staff backstage, he has been very matter of fact, he's been talking about how great of a run it's been.

And I've had the pleasure and the responsibility of sharing what we do every day with you in front of this camera for the last 10 years. And let me tell you, it is a fantastic job. He also has been given 10 months to stay on the show. This cancellation is not immediate. It's only at the end of this season. And I think we're going to see what he really thinks during that time. I can finally speak unvarnished truth to power and say what I really think about Donald Trump,

starting right now. I don't care for him. Doesn't seem to have like the skill set. Doesn't have the skill set to be president. Just not a good fit. That's all. I saw Julia Louis-Dreyfus today on Instagram, I think it was, saying, you know, I stand with Stephen Colbert. What's been the reaction from the famous people community? What are other celebrities and late night hosts saying? I think there's disappointment on two levels. One, Colbert has

just been a class act throughout his career. People love him, people love doing the show. It's been very helpful to people in promoting their projects and going on the show. So I think there's a real disappointment and anger over this cancellation. Secondly, I think there's a real fear going on right now, regardless of what actually happened. The optics are so bad here that it really feels

like the criticism of people in power is being scrutinized right now like never before. Cancelling Colbert is an obvious move to appease Donald Trump and I need to tell y'all something. If you don't think we are under a regime with an authoritarian strategy then you are bugging. This is textbook authoritarian rule. So here's the point. If you're trying to figure out why Stephen's show is ending, I don't think the answer can be found in some smoking gun email or phone call from Trump to CBS executives or in CBS's QuickBooks spreadsheets on the financial health of late night. I think

the answer is in the fear and pre-compliance that is gripping all of America's institutions at this very moment. Instit institutions that have chosen not to fight the vengeful and vindictive actions of our pubic hair doodling commander-in-chief. I think there's a real fear around Hollywood that you say something that the president doesn't approve of and all of a sudden you've got a target on your back. My guess is that Colbert is gonna be fine.

He'll do a podcast or something. Stephen, call me. But I do, as a journalist, I do worry a lot about news and whether news organizations should be beholden to these corporate interests, to a person like Sherry Redstone who has her own motives. Is this a complaint I should have lodged 40 years ago? How worried are you about all of this? Well, there's always been a push-pull in the news business between the corporate interests of the owners

and the job that the news organization is doing for the viewers. In part, that's the reason why the FCC has these public interest goals in mind at the federal level. The thing that's changed here is that the Trump administration has been using this public

interest, essentially regulation over the news business to try to shape it in its own image and to get the kind of coverage that it wants to get and that it thinks its supporters want to get. And that to me is new and potentially very dangerous because you have very powerful people using the levers of government to change the news. Throughout all the pressure during this deal and the sale to Skydance,

none of the 60 minutes stories actually changed. So will that be the same under David Ellison and the new Skydance regime? We don't know. We'll see. Pux, Matt Bellany, he's host of the Town podcast. Today's show was produced by Avashai Artsy and edited by Jolie Myers, Laura Bullard, check the facts, and Patrick Boyd is the only engineer. I'm Noelle King, this is Today Explained. So that's it. I'm gone, just like,

in May. You