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\n Weaponize the levers of government for partisan political gain. Pressure privately owned media companies to toe the party line. Punish the owners who resist and reward the ones who acquiesce.\n <\/p>\n
\n That\u2019s how Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orb\u00e1n consolidated control of the media in his country, according to scholars who witnessed Hungary\u2019s democratic backsliding firsthand.\n <\/p>\n
\n President Trump and his allies appear to be running the same playbook against media outlets in the US.\n <\/p>\n
\n Using legal maneuvers, financial incentives and public pressure campaigns, Trump is persuading companies to make changes that benefit his party and bolster his own power. Wednesday\u2019s decision by Disney\u2019s ABC to sideline Jimmy Kimmel<\/a> is the latest example.\n <\/p>\n \n Free speech groups like the ACLU warned that the Kimmel suspension is part of a broad Trump-led effort to silence his critics.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThis is beyond McCarthyism. Trump officials are repeatedly abusing their power to stop ideas they don\u2019t like, deciding who can speak, write, and even joke,\u201d the ACLU said. \u201cThe Trump administration\u2019s actions, paired with ABC\u2019s capitulation, represent a grave threat to our First Amendment freedoms.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n G\u00e1bor Scheiring, who experienced Orb\u00e1n\u2019s autocratic power plays firsthand as a member of the Hungarian parliament, told CNN that \u201cthis story is very familiar.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Scheiring said that both ABC\u2019s decision-making about Kimmel and last July\u2019s move by CBS to cancel \u201cThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert\u201d reek of what is sometimes called \u201cOrbanism.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Scheiring, now an assistant professor at Georgetown University Qatar, said Orb\u00e1n weakened public broadcasting, muzzled independent media through \u201cautocratic carrots and sticks,\u201d and incentivized owners to fall in line.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cA key underlying story is that media owners, both foreign and domestic, largely capitulated individually rather than mounting collective resistance, which enabled Orb\u00e1n\u2019s systematic capture strategy,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n \n Media critics in the US have similarly chastised American companies like Disney for caving to Trump\u2019s desires, most pointedly through legal settlements.\n <\/p>\n \n Disney settled Trump\u2019s defamation lawsuit against ABC last December rather than defending itself in court, and Paramount settled Trump\u2019s suit against CBS last July, even though legal experts said Paramount had a very strong case.\n <\/p>\n \n The president is now suing both The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. His legal warfare has been combined with an unprecedented application of the government\u2019s regulatory powers. Brendan Carr, his hand-picked chair of the FCC, has opened probes of several TV station owners that Trump dislikes and inserted himself politically in ways that past FCC officials never have.\n <\/p>\n \n When Orban came to power in 2010 and turned Hungary in a more authoritarian direction, he used \u201cfinancial and legal means\u201d to muzzle critical media outlets, Scheiring said.\n <\/p>\n![\"Hungarian](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/gettyimages-2215514456.jpg\")
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