On Sunday night’s “Last Week Tonight,” host and comedian John Oliver discussed the shift in how the traditional media has responded to President Donald Trump’s second go-around in office. Oliver noted that the media’s desire to stay in Trump’s good graces seems to have only emboldened Trump’s animosity toward it.

He highlighted a recent incident where an ABC reporter had the audacity to ask Trump about the transparent bribe/gift of a Qatari luxury jetliner to use as Air Force One. In response, Trump lambasted the reporter and her network, calling ABC a “disaster.”

“I actually agree that ABC should be embarrassed. Just not for that entirely legitimate question,” Oliver joked, “but for the fact that as of taping, they still haven’t renewed ‘Doctor Odyssey’ for season two!”

Oliver details how billionaires like Jeff Bezos have neutered the Washington Post, refusing to allow the “Democracy Dies in Darkness” newspaper to run a traditional presidential endorsement. One of the tech sugar daddies to appear behind Trump on Inauguration Day, Bezos has spent the last few months acquiring Trump-related intellectual property, seemingly to ingratiate himself with the would-be orange king.

Oliver remarks that while the media’s genuflecting, and the Trump administration’s efforts to transform the White House briefing room into a sycophantic echo chamber have turned press briefings into bizarre, right-wing, fact-free exercises drowning in empty rhetoric, it’s the the First Amendment and our right to free speech, that’s truly at stake.

“I’d argue there’s a special obligation here to any outlets owned by extremely wealthy people like this lot to fight back. Don’t comply with Trump’s ridiculous demands prematurely. I know he and the FCC are making a lot of intimidating-sounding threats,” Oliver says. He was directing his comments at outlets that have been sued by Trump, or threatened by Trump’s FCC, and have folded and settled rather than fight his authoritarian abuse of our legal system. 

“Fighting them will undeniably take time, effort, and money, but I’d argue it is very much worth it, especially when the likeliest outcome is that you win definitively.” 

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