Portside

History rarely announces itself. It creeps in quietly, cloaked in the language of “law and order,” “national security,” and “patriotism.” But every now and then, it screams.

Last week, it screamed.

Donald Trump, now seated once again behind the Resolute Desk, and his Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, have openly threatened CNN with criminal prosecution for reporting on the existence and use of an app — ICEBlock — that alerts undocumented immigrants about nearby Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations.

This app, which is publicly available, and the reporting around it — likewise rooted in public records — is suddenly being framed as a “national security threat.”

Let’s be crystal clear about what’s happening: the President of the United States and his administration are threatening to jail journalists for doing their jobs.

This isn’t just an authoritarian flirtation. It’s a shot across the bow of American democracy. And it should chill every citizen who still believes in the sacred protections of the First Amendment and the role of a free press in our constitutional republic.

There’s a reason the Founders placed freedom of the press in the very First Amendment. They understood that tyranny doesn’t announce itself with tanks in the streets (although Trump has brought us that, too, in DC and Los Angeles): it begins when dissent is silenced and truth becomes optional. When the government gains the power to determine what is and isn’t “acceptable” journalism or citizen monitoring of government actions, democracy doesn’t just wobble. It collapses.

We’ve seen this movie before.

In the 1970s, Richard Nixon compiled an “enemies list,” weaponizing the IRS and FBI against journalists and political opponents. But even Nixon — infamous as he was — never dared prosecute a major news network for reporting publicly available facts or proudly announces criminal investigations of individuals monitoring the police.

In 1917, Woodrow Wilson signed the Espionage Act into law, a piece of legislation later used to imprison dissenters and suppress anti-war journalists during World War I. Bernie Sanders’ hero, democratic socialist Eugene Debs, was thrown into prison for protesting our involvement in World War I and ran for president in 1920 from his prison cell.

In 1950s McCarthyist America, journalists who didn’t toe the anti-communist line were blacklisted, surveilled, and driven from their careers.

Historians — and even high school history classes — correctly identify Wilson’s and McCarthy’s excesses as a terrible moments in our past, moments that should never, ever be repeated.

But now, in 2025, we are revisiting that time but with a new beast entirely: a populist authoritarian with open contempt for constitutional constraints, emboldened by a cult of personality, and empowered by six corrupt Republicans on a Supreme Court that has told him he can openly commit crimes without fear of prosecution.

Compounding this crisis of democracy is a billionaire-owned right-wing media ecosystem that no longer even pretends to tell the truth.

Donald Trump is not unique in history, but the confluence of power, propaganda, and post-truth politics he embodies is dangerously unprecedented in America.

The most terrifying part of this episode is not that Trump is threatening CNN. It’s that every other newsroom in America is now taking notice and some are immediately bending the knee.

For example, CBS’s new president, David Ellison (son of billionaire “MAGA Larry” Ellison) reportedly just gave give $15 million to Trump and promised, according to Trump himself, another $15 million in nationwide “free advertising” for his hateful MAGA message.

When a president targets a media outlet for reporting on a publicly available app or quoting anonymous officials, the effect isn’t just on that outlet. It reverberates throughout every editorial board, every reporter’s notebook, every newsroom budget meeting.

They ask themselves: Should we cover this story? Will we get sued? Will our reporters get subpoenaed? Is it worth the cost, risk, or even the hassle?

This is the “chilling effect” in action. And it is exactly what authoritarians want and dictators get.

They don’t need to jail every journalist or even every protestor or opposition politician; there are only around 1,500 political prisoners in Russia, a country with a population of 143 million. That’s all Putin needed to cow the press and the political opposition — and the people in the streets — into silence.

Ask journalists and activists in Mexico, where threats and violence have silenced entire newspapers. Or in Russia, where one law criminalized the reporting of the word “war” to describe the Ukraine invasion and the entire nation’s press immediately bent the knee. Or in Hungary, where Viktor Orbán turned independent press outlets into government mouthpieces. It always starts the same way: with “exceptions,” “investigations,” “national security,” and “fake news.”

Sound familiar?

Let’s talk about what CNN actually reported. The so-called “ICEBlock” app was not a secret Pentagon tool. It’s publicly downloadable. It informs undocumented immigrants — many of whom have lived and worked here for decades — about where ICE raids might be happening. You know, the same way Waze tells drivers where police speed traps are.

CNN and The New York Times also reported on internal U.S. government discussions about military options in Iran, again, based on information already circulating through D.C. and partially leaked by officials themselves. It was nothing that would’ve shocked the Ayatollah.

But Trump saw a headline he didn’t like, and Noem saw a political opportunity to play tough cop on immigration. So now, instead of debating immigration policy or Middle East strategy, we’re talking about jailing journalists and suing news outlets.

Let me repeat that: jailing journalists. Not pressuring them. Not criticizing them. Prosecuting them.

Here’s the thing. All Trump needs is a few ambitious prosecutors, a distracted electorate, and a media too scared — or too worried about its bottom line — to fight back.

This is authoritarianism in a designer suit. And it’s already here.

Right-wing billionaires have bought up local newspapers and radio stations, converting once-independent voices into megaphones for MAGA talking points. “Citizen journalists” on social media — and Russian troll farms — parrot conspiracy theories generated by AI-enhanced bots that are then amplified by secret algorithms. The line between “news” and “propaganda” has blurred beyond recognition.

Meanwhile, genuine investigative reporters — those who dig into government corruption, environmental devastation, and police abuse — are under constant threat. Financially. Legally. Sometimes physically.

Just ask the journalists shot or arrested during Black Lives Matter protests. Or the ones surveilled by ICE for uncovering abuses in detention centers.

This isn’t about CNN. It’s about whether truth still has a place in the American conversation.

If this prosecution threat succeeds — whether through actual charges or through the intimidation it provokes — the consequences will be draconian.

— Whistleblowers will go silent. Why leak evidence of government wrongdoing if the journalists who publish it are dragged into court and forced to reveal their sources?

— Investigative journalism will wither. Why invest time and money into reporting if the legal risks outweigh losing your job or going to prison?

— Civic ignorance will grow. Without trusted sources of information, citizens turn to whatever confirms their biases: YouTube grifters, Twitter trolls, or state-run propaganda.

— Corruption will thrive. From corporate polluters to racist sheriffs to masked agents of the state, the worst among us flourish in darkness.

This is how democracies die, not with a bang, but with a threat and a few individuals or organizations destroyed to “make them an example.”

So what do we do?

First, we demand that every member of Congress — Democrat and Republican — publicly condemn this threat against CNN. Silence is complicity.

Second, we urge our courts to defend the First Amendment with the vigor it demands. The press must remain free from government intimidation, or it is not truly free.

Third, we support independent journalism with our wallets. Subscribe. Donate. Share their stories. The corporate media won’t save us. We the people, must.

Fourth, we organize. Not just around press freedom, but around every interconnected pillar of democracy under threat: voting rights, judicial integrity, environmental justice, and yes, immigration reform rooted in compassion, not cruelty.

And finally, we remember: The Founders gave us a roadmap. We the People are the ultimate check on tyranny.

But only if we show up. Only if we speak out.

July 2, 2025, when Trump made that threat, will go down as a dark day in American history, unless we choose to make it a turning point.

Trump’s assault on the press is not a sideshow. It is not a distraction. It is the whole game. Control the narrative, and you control the country. Silence dissent, and you can do anything.

The American experiment survives only as long as we defend the institutions that make it possible. And a free press is not just one of those institutions: it’s the first line of defense.

So today, we stand with CNN. Tomorrow, it might be ProPublica. Or Mother Jones. Or your local paper. Or this newsletter.

When the truth becomes a crime, then we are all criminals. And in that case, I say proudly: print the truth anyway.

Let them come.

Thom Hartmann is a NY Times bestselling author of 34 books in 17 languages & nation's #1 progressive radio host. Psychotherapist, international relief worker. Politics, history, spirituality, psychology, science, anthropology, pre-history, culture, and the natural world.