David Folkenflik

speaker

217 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 3d ago

David Folkenflik’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

Trend

recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.

Appearances

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The NPR Politics Podcast · What is Trump's interest in Paramount's merger with WB? · 6 Aug 2026 podcast

And that was taken as a sign both of embodying promises and principles set out in getting the Trump administration's approval for this, the takeover of matched

Paramount a year ago and also signaling what he'd be interested in doing with CNN as he seeks to do this much bigger takeover. matched

So that is the state of play. matched

And that's why Trump's involved. matched

And that's why it's front of mind for Trump. matched

He, of course, cares. matched

He always talks about how the media is failing and he doesn't care. matched

He is deeply invested in understanding how the media works and in helping to dictate and control it. matched

Yeah, the funny thing is, you know, I might take issue in some ways the idea that the media is failing, but the media is under unbelievable pressure and it's financial, it's technological, it's the ways in which consumers absorb news and entertainment and information and their interest in it. matched

You know, and it's also the government pressure, which is just extraordinary. matched

And I think that if you think of how the press operated in 2016, 2017, I actually think the press is more responsible now. matched

It was in some ways more hysterical about what Trump was doing at times because what he did was unprecedented and it didn't know how to absorb it. matched

And at times, I don't feel that even mainstream news organizations did great in sifting through and fact checking and verifying all the allegations against him because so many matched

crazily, you know, seemingly crazy allegations against him turned out to be true or at least have credibility to them. matched

I think the accountability journalism going on now is tighter and tougher and smarter. matched

And yet he has... matched

You know, been emboldened in his return to office in January of last year to, as you say, use the courts as a private citizen to go after almost every major news outlet you can think of. matched

Use the levers of power of government to go after public media. matched

specifically because he doesn't like their – you know, its coverage, using the levers of power to reward those that he would feel fits with his agenda through approval of major deals like this one. matched

You know, when Fox in his first term and the Murdochs, an ally, as much as Rupert Murdoch doesn't respect Trump, he has forged a very good working alliance with Trump when he can. matched

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