READ: “I think if Donald Trump could kill reporters, he would,” warns White House reporter.

Attacks on press freedom spark worries of impending journalist prosecutions and arrests.

I spoke this morning with Brian Karem, one of the few American journalists who actually knows what it’s like to be jailed in the United States for protecting a source. Four times he’s been locked up for doing his job. Once he faced what was essentially a life sentence — a judge prepared to keep him in confinement indefinitely unless he revealed a confidential source. He didn’t. The source came forward on their own. And Brian walked out with his principles intact.

In our conversation, he said something that I’m going to be thinking about going into the weekend:

“If Donald Trump could kill reporters, he would.”

In any other era, a claim like that would belong in a filthy trash bin of conspiracy theories or the ivory towers where academics issue hysterical, out-of-touch warnings. Brian is different. He’s covered the Trump White House from the press briefing room and knows the man in the Oval Office is very different than anyone who came before him. And in Donald Trump, this week Brian observed something scary.

The president displayed quite clearly this week that he envies the power of autocrats like Mohammed bin Salman — the Saudi crown prince who received a grandiose welcome to the White House, and who is widely believed to have orchestrated the murder and dismemberment of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump sat beside MBS in the Oval Office just days ago, defending him from questions about that killing while castigating ABC’s Mary Bruce for merely asking why Trump won’t release the Epstein files.

Yet it was American reporter Mary Bruce (not the murderer smirking next to Trump) who became the target of Trump’s rage.

As Brian made clear, that scene revealed the moral inversion at the heart of this presidency. The journalist asking a legitimate question became the villain in the president’s eyes, while the autocrat who actually ordered an American reporter chopped into bits became a partner in a new arms deal. Trump even threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcast license — an authority that Brian rightfully pointed out he does not possess, but which he invokes as a threat often enough to weaken institutional courage.

But we’re trending toward something quite bad, Brian explained.

“Donald Trump would love to jail as many reporters as possible.”

He predicted that the president is now “very” likely to launch investigations into journalists, some of which are bound to wind up with them serving time in jail. Earlier this year, the Justice Department quietly rescinded rules that limited the ability of federal investigators to seize journalists’ records or conduct raids on their homes. It is now vastly easier for the government to monitor their communications, identify their sources, and build criminal cases against them. The only thing standing between a journalist and a jail cell is the political appetite of a president who has promised retribution.

Brian believes the appetite is there. He predicts an early wave of economic retaliation — blacklists, firings, targeted financial ruin — followed by prosecutions designed to force journalists to betray confidential sources or face indefinite incarceration. A former Trump aide once joked to Brian that he was “on the list” of people Trump wanted to imprison. The aide meant it as a reassurance. You’re low on the list. Brian’s response was telling: It doesn’t bother me where I am on the list. It bothers me that there is a list at all.

Trump has created a fertile the ecosystem for political retaliation against the press. In his first term, he yanked press credentials from Jim Acosta and from Brian himself (though he lost repeatedly in federal court). He learned from those defeats. He’s now leaning on his supporters to buy media companies, reshape their newsrooms, and purge journalists he considers enemies. He’s placed unseemly allies atop the regulatory bodies that oversee the press. And now, with a second term underway, he’s readied the Justice Department for action.

What struck me in my conversation with Brian is that we are far closer to the point of no return than most people understand. This administration is already testing how much it can get away with. It’s already kicked most media outlets out of the Pentagon in an attempt to put a blindfold over news outlets about what’s happening in America’s largest federal department. Reporters are rightfully worried that prosecutions are next.

Brian is defiant, as he always has been. He’ll go back to jail before he gives up a source. Many reporters will. But a democracy shouldn’t have to survive on individual heroism alone. It relies on its institutions (courts, Congress, and a public that understands the stakes) as a first line of defense before asking people to forfeit their rights to protect the rights of others.

If journalists end up behind bars simply for doing their jobs, we shouldn’t act surprised. He told us exactly what he intended, and too many people decided he wasn’t serious. He is serious. And he’s already started.

For my full conversation with Brian Karem — and the breaking news of the day — listen to this morning’s broadcast of DEFIANCE Radio, which airs every single weekday at 7 a.m. ET LIVE on Substack. Link below.

Your friend, in defiance,

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