Donald Trump thought that if he could scare television executives badly enough, eventually the jokes would stop. Probably more than any other president, he understands television’s power because he was manufactured and insulated by it. So Trump thought that if Stephen Colbert could be pushed off his late-night perch at CBS and Jimmy Kimmel could be suspended by ABC, and Brendan Carr could dangle the Federal Communications Commission over ABC like a regulatory sword, the message would sink in across the television industry: Criticize the president at your own peril.
For a while, Trump’s gameplan seemed to be working. But it’s now clear that ABC and Disney, the network’s parent company, have decided they are done running.
