Il leggendario giornalista Dan Rather ha criticato l'amministrazione Trump in un nuovo saggio su Substack dopo che, a suo avviso, i funzionari hanno rivelato il playbook di disinformazione del presidente.

Nell'ultima settimana, il Segretario alla Difesa Pete Hegseth ha rimosso diversi giornalisti dal quotidiano militare Stars & Stripes per la sua copertura. Il presidente Donald Trump ha inoltre chiesto alla FCC di indagare su Kristen Welker di NBC News, una mossa che molti hanno definito volta a intimidire ulteriormente la stampa, sottolineando come accesso e controllo possano diventare parte della storia quando il tema riguarda la sicurezza nazionale e le operazioni militari.

"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," Rather wrote.

"Their madness is succeeding," he added. "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 ha sostenuto nel suo saggio che gli attacchi fanno parte di un playbook in tre mosse che Trump e i suoi alleati usano per distorcere la verità.

"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," Rather wrote. "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 ha anche avvertito che gli attacchi prolungati alla stampa preannunciano un futuro inquietante per l'America.

"The Fourth Estate is essential to holding the powerful accountable, especially during Trump’s reign," he added. "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," he added.