Joy Behar and Rachel Maddow expressed fears on “The View” about Trump potentially using his power to cancel their shows if re-elected, citing concerns of vindictiveness and possible interference through the IRS or sponsor pressure.
However, such worries overlook a lack of censorship under Trump’s previous term and have shed light on what many see as an evident left-wing projection in fear of speech suppression.
“I think that he is so vindictive that he will go after … however he has to, through the IRS maybe, or even through sponsors to get us off the air,” Behar said.
Joy Behar fears Donald Trump could pull The View and Rachel Maddow's show off the air in a second term.
"How seriously should we be taking that?" https://t.co/eyukfAQirh pic.twitter.com/F9qVj9TI9M
— Zachary Leeman (@WritingLeeman) June 18, 2024
Conservatives have pointed to past instances of left-leaning advocacy groups targeting conservative media through advertiser boycotts and censoring efforts, contrasting with accusations of Twitter bias and government influence on content moderation.
Sleeping Giants’ co-founder Nandini Jammi once even wrote an article titled “How we took Tucker Carlson Tonight off the air.”
“Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation,” journalist Matt Taibbi wrote in 2022. “There were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right,” he said.
“Effectively, news media became an arm of a state-sponsored thought-policing system,” Taibbi said in 2023. “It’s not possible to instantly arrive at truth. It is however becoming technologically possible to instantly define and enforce a political consensus online, which I believe is what we’re looking at.”
“The fact that this far-left radical wants to put people on lists is un-American and flies in the face of our Constitutional rights,” Rep. George Murphy stated. “This is a direct attack on the foundation of our democracy. I strongly condemn these deeply divisive words.”
“I don’t think that they should be forgotten, I don’t think we should look the other way,” Behar’s co-host Sunny Hostin stated in 2020. “We need to remember because if you don’t remember things then past becomes prologue. I don’t think it’s reminiscent of McCarthyism at all.”
“I think you have to be specific about who you’ll target as collaborators,” Behar said.
