The White House is threatening US media outlets over their coverage of the war in Iran.

BarcelonaUnder pressure from a November election with a high cost of living and soaring inflation due to rising oil prices, the Trump administration is trying to sell the military campaign against Iran as an unprecedented success. But most of the independent press isn't buying it. While some journalists are wondering if Donald Trump did not foresee the economic impact that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz would have.Others question the thirteen American victims that have occurred so far or investigate the bombing of a girls' school. The White House's strategy has thus far been to belittle and discredit the press.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth even suggested alternative headlines to the media this Friday, like those the "patriotic press" would use. In response to the headline "War Expands," which he claimed to have read the day before, he proposed "Iran Shrinks and Goes Underground" or "Iran Grows More Desperate." After criticizing CNN by name, Hegseth went so far as to say, "The sooner David Ellison takes over this network, the better." Ellison, a Trump ally, is the frontrunner to acquire CNN's parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, and has reportedly promised sweeping changes at the network if the deal goes through. In fact, Ellison has already placed more conservative journalists at the helm of CBS News.

Another act of retaliation by the US administration against the press has been the ban on photographers in Pentagon briefing rooms. Under the pretext that Hegseth himself appeared "unflattering" in images distributed by agencies such as Associated Press, Reuters, and Getty, the Department of Defense prohibited photographers from attending subsequent briefings, arguing that they could obtain images from the official government photographer.

But the warnings didn't stop there. Brendan Carr, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, threatened on Saturday to revoke the licenses of broadcasters for their coverage of the war with Iran. "Broadcasters that spread lies and misinformation (also known as fake news) now have an opportunity to correct course before their license renewals are due," he stated in a social media post. He added that networks that did not operate "in the public interest" would "lose their licenses."

A violation of the First Amendment

In his message, Carr quoted a post by Donald Trump, published through Truth Social, in which he criticized the media for its coverage of the conflict in the Middle East and claimed they wanted the United States to lose the war. The Republican leader called a Wall Street Journal headline reporting that five U.S. refueling planes had been attacked in Saudi Arabia "intentionally misleading." Both Democratic members of Congress and free speech organizations quickly condemned Carr's threat as a violation of the First Amendment, which guarantees civil liberties in the U.S. Constitution. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression issued a statement asserting that Carr's remarks were marked by a "blatant desire to intimidate and threaten our free press." For her part, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren called the comment "straight out of the authoritarian playbook," and fellow Democrat Senator Mark Kelly added, "When our nation is at war, it is critical that the press be free to report without government interference."