LAST UPDATE | 20 Sep 2025

TEXAS SENATOR TED Cruz, an ally of US President Donald Trump, has said he believes it’s dangerous for a government to put itself in a position to say what speech it may or may not like.

Commenting on Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Brendan Carr’s threat to fine broadcasters or pull their licences over the content of their shows, Cruz referenced a Martin Scorsese gangster movie.

“I got to say that’s right out of ‘Goodfellas’,” Cruz said. “That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It would be a shame if something happened to it.’”

Trump has bashed US media coverage that he claimed was unduly negative and therefore “illegal,” stoking a debate over free speech following the suspension of comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s TV show by ABC.

“They’ll take a great story and they’ll make it bad. See I think it’s really illegal, personally,” Trump, who has sued multiple major news organizations this year, told reporters gathered in the Oval Office.

The 79-year-old Republican, an avid television watcher, chiefly focused his diatribe on US television networks, reiterating a claim that coverage of him and his administration is “97 percent bad.”

He also defended Carr, whose threats against broadcasters have sparked a national debate over free speech and caused some unease even among Republicans.

Carr on Wednesday criticized Kimmel’s remarks on the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and threatened broadcasters who carry his show with possible sanctions.

Hours later, ABC announced Kimmel’s show was suspended indefinitely.

Trump called Carr “an incredible American patriot with courage.”

Trump faced a setback in his personal anti-media crusade yesterday, with a federal judge issuing a scathing ruling and tossing out his $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.

Prosecutor ‘fired’ 

Meanwhile, Trump has also said he “fired” a federal prosecutor who was reportedly facing pressure over investigations into two of his political foes.

Erik Siebert, US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, told staff of his resignation via an email on Friday, the New York Times and other US media outlets reported.

Siebert had been under pressure to prosecute two of Trump’s political adversaries, former FBI director James Comey – whom Trump fired in 2017 – and New York Attorney General Letitia James, the Times reported.

Some officials in the administration had argued for Siebert to keep his position, according to the Times.

“Today I withdrew the Nomination of Erik Siebert as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, when I was informed that he received the UNUSUALLY STRONG support of the two absolutely terrible, sleazebag Democrat Senators, from the Great State of Virginia,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

“He didn’t quit, I fired him!” he added.

Hours earlier in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters: “I want him out.”

The federal prosecutor had recently told Justice Department leadership he was declining to prosecute Comey over allegations he lied to Congress, and that there was insufficient evidence to charge James with mortgage fraud, officials familiar with the matter told the Washington Post.

Former FBI chief Comey was fired while leading a probe into whether any members of the Trump campaign had colluded with Moscow to sway the 2016 presidential vote, and has been a vocal critic of the Republican president.

James, as New York’s state prosecutor, brought a $464 million case against Trump, alleging he and his company had unlawfully inflated his wealth and manipulated the value of properties to obtain favorable bank loans or insurance terms.

She, like several other Democratic officials, has been accused by a close Trump ally, Federal Housing Finance Agency director Bill Pulte, of falsifying documents on mortgage applications.

Asked about the case against James on Friday, Trump said: “It looks to me like she’s really guilty of something, but I really don’t know.”

Siebert, a graduate of Virginia Military Institute and a former Washington police officer, led a team of approximately 300 prosecutors in a jurisdiction that often handles major cases related to national security.