Journalists placed on Trump’s offender list will ‘keep doing our jobs’
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Trump administration creates website targeting journalists, one with NC ties
- Effort comes as Pentagon replaces press corps with right-wing influencers
- Senate confirmed three NC federal judges and a fourth awaited approval
Good morning! It’s Danielle Battaglia with the latest edition of Under the Dome focused on the administration of President Donald Trump.
Even as Pentagon officials last week ushered in a new press corps — influencers who agreed to report only what the administration authorizes — the White House launched a website to discredit journalists.
White House officials said the website is looking to expose biased reporters. Four who are highlighted there are being criticized for their reporting on Trump’s reaction to the six members of Congress who said members of the military could refuse illegal orders. The White House said the reporters misrepresented the president’s attempt to hold members accountable for “inciting sedition” by “saying that he called for their execution.” (I wrote about this in the newsletter two weeks ago, after Trump reposted a message calling for six members of Congress to be hanged in response.)
The Committee to Protect Journalists put out a statement in response to the website.
“This latest move from the Trump administration should be a wakeup call to Americans that their tax dollars are being used to suppress, rather than encourage freedom of speech,” wrote Katherine Jacobsen, a program coordinator for the committee. “The Trump administration’s landing page creates a dangerous permission structure for attacks on journalists and an attempt to undermine newsrooms across the country. This type of behavior is more in line with an authoritarian regime, and has no place in a democracy.”
The White House’s Media Offender list currently highlights four reporters, though a dropdown menu names another 52. At least one former McClatchy reporter is included on the larger list.
UNC-Chapel Hill alumnus Eric Garcia is among the four; he serves as Washington bureau chief for The Independent. (Before I get any further, if you’re not following Garcia on social media, you should. He’s well-versed in North Carolina politics). His colleague Andrew Feinberg was also on the list.
“Literally a few days after, Karoline Leavitt took a question from my colleague Andrew Feinberg, so it just shows us this is all kayfabe, to borrow a term from wrestling,” Garcia said, adding his reference was a nod to Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, who founded the WWE and is a North Carolina native. “It’s Trump throwing red meat to his supporters and making them think that he’s sticking it to the deep state. But you know we’re going to keep doing our jobs.”
For those who don’t follow wrestling (like me), kayfabe is, according to Merriam-Webster, “an agreement between professional wrestlers and their fans to pretend that overtly staged wrestling events, stories, characters, etc., are genuine.”
Garcia was unfazed by being named.
He added that Washington journalists have a tendency to be self-important, but he recognizes he was sitting in the Capitol while other journalists are risking their lives to tell stories from Ukraine, Gaza and Russia and other reporters are being arrested while covering ICE arrests in Chicago.
“We are very lucky,” Garcia said. “We need to get over ourselves and just keep doing our jobs.”
Over in the Pentagon, influencers who included conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer and former Rep. Matt Gaetz are now serving as reporters in news conferences with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.
And in a sign of what’s to come, several posted on social media — one with a visible open beer can — that officials told several of them they were given the Washington Post’s desk, only to learn that that wasn’t true.
This new press corps, beholden to the administration, comes as Hegseth is under scrutiny from a Washington Post article that reported Hegseth gave orders to “kill everybody” on a boat the United States struck off the coast of Trinidad that it suspected of smuggling drugs. Two survivors that clung to the wreckage, and a second strike was ordered to comply with Hegseth’s order, the Post reported. Hegseth denies making that statement.
Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican from Huntersville, responding to the report, told Punchbowl News reporter Max Cohen, “If there was a direction to take a second shot and kill people, that’s a violation of an ethical, moral, or legal code. But it could be, was it the Oxford word of the year: rage bait?”
Thomas Jefferson once said, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” He also said, “Our citizens may be deceived for a while, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light.”
To be clear, the former president wasn’t always a fan of the press — no politician is — but our founding fathers believed in press freedom enough to codify it into the Constitution.
Reporters without Borders explains the current situation like this: “After a century of gradual expansion of press rights in the United States, the country is experiencing its first significant and prolonged decline in press freedom in modern history, and Donald Trump’s return to the presidency is greatly exacerbating the situation.”
“President Donald Trump was elected to a second term after a campaign in which he denigrated the press on a daily basis and made explicit threats to weaponize the federal government against the media,” Reporters without Borders states on the organization’s website. “His early moves in his second mandate to politicize the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), ban the Associated Press from the White House, or dismantle the US Agency for Global Media, for example, have jeopardized the country’s news outlets and indicate that he intends to follow through on his threats, setting up a potential crisis for American journalism.”
And the website states that politicians’ open disdain for the media has caused greater safety threats.
The United States is now listed as problematic on the Reporters without Borders global tracker for the condition of journalism in the country.
Federal judges confirmed
In other news, the U.S. Senate confirmed four of Trump’s nominees to be North Carolina’s federal judges.
They include:
- Judge David Bragdon
- Judge Lindsay Freeman
- Judge Matthew Orso
- Judge Susan Courtwright Rodriguez
Bragdon and Freeman will serve the state’s Middle District. Orso and Courtwright Rodriguez will serve the Western District.
Sens. Tillis and Ted Budd, a Republican from Davie County, sent a joint statement following Bragdon and Freeman’s confirmation Tuesday praising the judges.
“Throughout this process, I’ve remained committed to advancing judges who uphold the Constitution, apply the law fairly, and serve with integrity,” Tillis wrote.
What we’ve been working on:
- Meet our democracy reporter, covering how NC votes — and whether votes count
- Trump lashes out as latest Charlotte light rail stabbing reignites political fight
- RTP scientists fired by EPA for signing a petition challenge terminations
- For the first time, a woman will hear federal cases on Charlotte’s top bench
- NC travelers without a REAL ID face a new TSA fee to fly this winter
- Embracing Trump and ‘America First,’ Michael Whatley files for NC’s Senate race
- Trump tariffs hurting NC businesses, Roy Cooper says on campaign trail in Charlotte
- Sen. Ted Budd makes staff changes to focus on NC’s 2028 election. Yes, 2028.
- Wake County woman detained by Border Patrol returns to immigration court
- Feds offer few names, inconsistent numbers for Border Patrol arrests in Charlotte
Thanks for reading and for supporting local journalism.
Be kind to each other.
If you have any feedback or tips for this edition of the newsletter, feel free to reach out to me directly at dbattaglia@mcclatchydc.com.
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This story was originally published December 8, 2025 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Journalists placed on Trump’s offender list will ‘keep doing our jobs’."
