As Trump attacks the press, billionaires undermine the media’s ability to do its duty.

This is an adapted excerpt from October 27 Velshi episode.

In every presidential election for more than 50 years, the major candidates have been interviewed on CBS News’ 60 Minutes in October, just before the election, to talk about their policies, their platforms and their values. This is the traditional final broadcast of the candidates for whom Americans can vote in a few weeks. Vice President Kamala Harris accepted CBS’ request for an interview, and Donald Trump initially did the same.

But then, a week before the interview, Trump backed out. Among other unsubstantiated complaints, his campaign objected to CBS’s obligation to fact-check the interview, which is standard practice. Hours after Harris’ interview aired, Trump took to his social media site to rant about how terrible the interview was and how poorly it went for the vice president.

But he soon changed direction and began attacking 60 Minutes and CBS more broadly, accusing the network of manipulating the interviews. CBS responded by explaining that the interview was simply edited for the sake of time and not to change the meaning or impact of Harris’ answers.

Trump wrote on his social media page:

60 Minutes is a core part of the CBS news organization that just committed the greatest fraud in broadcast history. CBS should lose their license and it should be sold to the highest bidder like all other broadcast licenses because they are just as corrupt as CBS and maybe even WORSE!

After a September debate with Harris on ABC News, Trump also called for the station’s broadcast license to be revoked. Jessica Rosenworcel, chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission, called Trump’s threat “serious” and said it “should not be ignored.”

“The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has not and will not revoke broadcast station licenses simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes the content or coverage,” Rosenworcel said in a statement.

And last week, Trump also threatened Comcast, the parent company of MSNBC, saying it should be investigated for “treason.”

But this week we saw two major news organizations, the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post, both owned by billionaires, refuse to endorse a candidate, despite both newspapers’ tradition of doing so and despite both newspapers’ editorial boards had endorsements prepared for Harris.

It is clear that Trump uses his power to control the narrative about himself, and the atmosphere created by his bullying and threats is sometimes enough to intimidate powerful people into submission. This behavior is called proactive obedience, or obeying in advance.

We’re seeing it happen this week thanks to the support of newspapers, but we’ve seen it before.

About five years ago, Nikole Hannah-Jones published The 1619 Project. It began as a 100-page spread in The New York Times Magazine that sought to place race, the consequences of slavery, and the contributions of black Americans at the center of our national narrative.

But just months after Hannah-Jones won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary on her work on the project, then-President Trump sparked a nationwide backlash against her ideas.

“The left has twisted, distorted and desecrated American history with deceit, falsehoods and falsehoods. There is no better example than the New York Times’ thoroughly discredited 1619 Project,” Trump said in 2020. “This project is rewriting American history to teach our children that we were founded on oppression, not freedom.”

Shortly thereafter, Trump issued a series of executive orders aimed at implementing the ideas of the 1619 Project. One of those executive orders established the so-called “1776 Commission,” which promised to focus history on what the Trump administration called “patriotic education,” avoiding divisive topics such as race and slavery.

In the years following its publication, states introduced at least 23 proposed gag orders targeting the 1619 Project. Dozens more bills have been directed at him indirectly, usually by attempting to suppress discussion of his core ideas. But the apparent vendetta against Hannah-Jones didn’t end with Trump. The University of North Carolina denied her tenure, even though she was at least overqualified for the position.

Four years after Hannah-Jones was targeted, we are witnessing important institutions, our schools, our media, our government officials kneeling preemptively to Trump’s threats. We are watching in real time as previously respected organizations succumb to pressure and power; to succumb to intimidation and submit in advance to the tyrannical and undemocratic demands of the former president. And as Trump’s attacks on the media intensify in the final days of this election, it is critical that the press fulfill its duty to hold power to account.

Sophia Miller And Allison Detzel contributed.