On Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr. questioned why certain Republicans would collaborate with Democrats to “kill alternative media,” and pushed Congress to remove the Journalism Competitiveness and Preservation Bill from the NDAA.
“Why are certain Republicans collaborating with Democrats to eliminate alternative media?” Trump Jr. posed sarcastically. “This legislation offers Big Tech and the Corporate Media even more censoring power. Remove it from the NDAA!”
Trump Jr. made his remarks after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) proposed including the Media Competition and Preservation Bill (JCPA) in the National Defense Authorization Act. The JCPA would establish an antitrust exemption to enable the media business to form a cartel to bargain higher advertising income with big tech. Opposers of the law argue that it would increase repression of conservatives while benefiting huge media corporations at the cost of independent sources.
Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) has led the Republican push for the bill, while Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) helped negotiate a compromise amendment that allowed the legislation to pass out of the Senate’s Judiciary Committee.
While Republicans like McConnell, Cruz, and Kennedy have attempted to bring the bill forward, conservatives such as Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton (R) have advocated for a filibuster if the bill is included in the NDAA.
Cotton called the JCPA a “payoff for liberal media corporations to create a cartel to collaborate with big tech that will harm center-right outlets.”
He went on:
“If Democrats insist on including these extraneous provisions in the bill, GOP senators should filibuster, and truthfully, House Republicans, of which votes are required to pass it in the House, also shouldn’t vote for it either, until Dems. back down and approve a defense bill that is focused entirely on supporting the troops.”
Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) stated that the provision should not be included in the NDAA.
“The JCPA has no business in a defense authorization measure,” Tillis wrote. “This clause is nothing more than a backdoor arrangement to compensate Big Media for its failing business practices.”
