El legendario periodista Dan Rather criticó a la administración Trump en un nuevo ensayo de Substack después de que, según su visión, funcionarios expusieran el manual de desinformación del presidente.

Durante la última semana, el secretario de Defensa Pete Hegseth ha retirado a varios periodistas del periódico militar Stars & Stripes por su cobertura. El presidente Donald Trump también ha pedido a la FCC que investigue a Kristen Welker, de NBC News, una medida que muchos han dicho que está diseñada para intimidar aún más a la prensa, subrayando cómo el acceso y la supervisión pueden formar parte de la historia cuando el tema es la seguridad nacional y las operaciones militares.

"That dynamic duo of disinformation doesn’t want you to know what’s going on with the thousands of U.S. military members stationed in the Iran theater. Nor do they want you to know the damage inflicted by Iran’s retaliatory attacks," escribió Rather.

"Their madness is succeeding," añadió. "Six months in, and we know little about what’s really going on. We hear secondhand accounts from parents of sailors and Marines on an aircraft carrier lacking food and basic necessities. Months after the fact, we are getting bare-bones reports of the destruction of American bases in the Middle East."

Rather argumentó en su ensayo que los ataques forman parte de un manual de tres frentes que Trump y sus aliados usan para distorsionar la verdad.

"The secretary of defense and the equally thin-skinned president live to lie and distort, and their reign of disinformation includes punishing those who are trying to find and report the news," escribió Rather. "Their get-the-reporter playbook has three main options, all of which we have seen this week: belittle and discredit; threaten and sue (we will get back to those in a minute); and, perhaps the most troublesome, block access."

Rather también advirtió que los ataques sostenidos contra la prensa apuntan a un futuro preocupante para Estados Unidos.

"The Fourth Estate is essential to holding the powerful accountable, especially during Trump’s reign," añadió. "He has gotten rid of or weakened most internal checks on power, like inspectors general and ethics offices, while ignoring norms, rules, and court orders."

"To those who think the press is too powerful in our democracy, it needs to be said that what we’re going through now is the price we pay when the press is under sustained attack by a president and his party," añadió.