Trump Truth Social Lawsuit Raises Media Questions

It's All Talk on a Friday morning. I'm Kevin D. It's coming to you from the Golden Tower of the Fisher Building. You know the number 1-800-8-9-57. Give us a call. Give us a text. 1-800-8-9-0. W-JR. We're going to take your calls and read your text at 1135, so pick up the phone and be a part of the show. President Trump facing a fascinating new lawsuit at the heart of it is a pretty simple question. Should anyone... be able to pay for faster access to information coming directly from the President of the United States. Trump's media's new Truth API is reportedly charging Wall Street firms as much as $100,000 a month for access to truth social posts milliseconds before everyone else, potentially including presidential posts about tariffs, wars, and other policies that can move financial markets. The Freedom of the Press Foundation and The Intercept are suing, arguing that when the president is communicating official government information, Americans and the press should get it on equal terms. Trump media says there's nothing unusual about charging for faster data feeds and accuses critics of trying to censor the president. Let's bring in Kristen McCutton, Chief Editorial for the Freedom of Press Foundation. Good morning. How are you? Good, Kevin. Thanks for having me. Thanks. Kirsten. I'm sorry. I appreciate you coming on. You know, people hear milliseconds and think, I don't know, is this a big deal? How important is a millisecond? What's behind the lawsuit and the idea of the lawsuit? You know, this ultimately boils down to freedom of speech, to having equal access. What's happening is truth social, this corrupt scheme, you can pay to get early access to government information. And it might be a millisecond, but, you know, that's market moving information. Military actions. So agency hirings and firings, this all comes through truth social. We know that he's conducting an official government business there. and now selling early access to it. That's not just unfair. It's unconstitutional, Kevin. Right. So if this was some private company or some private individual, not a big deal. The fact that this is the president of the United States changes that. That's exactly right. You know, the course of howled that what a government official post. is government business. And we have seen this is Trump's, this is President Trump's megaphone. This is how he often goes to truth social first for what we're doing, you know, both in domestic and foreign policy. This is, this is government business. So, you know, firms are paying $100,000 a month to be first. There's got to be some value to that or they wouldn't pay it. Do we believe that getting this information milliseconds earlier can translate into serious money on Wall Street?

Well, that's how Truth Social is selling it. It's calling it market moving. And it's about that. It's also about equal access. Right now, it's milliseconds. You know, we don't know who's to say that it couldn't be minutes. And those milliseconds... are important at its base that it's before you and I would see it. If we want to report on it or if we just want to know what's happening from our government, that's all of a sudden $100,000 a month. So Trump media, their defense is that paid APIs and premium data feeds are common, that it happens. It sounds like they're trying to separate, you know, their company from Trump being the president. Can they do that? No, President Trump is a government official. You know, the truth is those, when he posts on truth social, official government business, those don't belong to truth social. They actually, those posts belong to the U.S. governments, you know, under the Presidential Records Act. So in the lawsuit, the First Amendment argument is that the press and public should have equal access to presidential communications. That's a strong argument. You also raised the Fifth Amendment. What is the argument there? Yeah, that's right. First Amendment, we're talking equal access to public information. The fifth, you know, that bars placing conditions on access to our government without a legitimate reason, $100,000 a month. is not a legitimate reason. Trump, he owns more than 40% of Trump media through a trust, I believe. How significant is that financial connection to the legal and ethical questions here? That's right. Essentially, this is a company he controls and stands to profit from. We know at least 10 firms have signed up already for Truth API. And that's a direct profit for a company the president controls. And this has nothing to do with the fact that it's Trump. If this were President Obama or Biden or someone else, you would have the exact same philosophy and argument here.

That's right, Kevin. This is unconstitutional from any government official, certainly from the president of the United States, who stands to profit from it when he's making the posts that change our markets. What is the status of the lawsuit? So it's filed this week, and now it's filed, and now we wait, and love, like, getting to talk about it and how important this is. You'd be surprised. of some people I've talked to didn't realize truth API is already in place. So it's been really important to talk that there's already firms who have early access to the government and to Trump's posts. It's actually the top 10 truth social accounts, and it includes other government officials as well. And so with the litigation filed, we really get to bring this issue to light right now. All right. Do we know how long it's been going on? August 1, so they're in week two. Okay. All right. Kirsten McCutton, Chief of Editorial for Freedom of Press Foundation. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We'll definitely follow this lawsuit, and we'll get you back on. Thanks so much. Thank you. Have a great one. Yeah, what do you think about this? Jeff and St. Clair Shores says, I voted for Trump, but I don't like this. If the president announces something involving tariffs, war, or the economy, every American should get that information at the same time. Being president shouldn't create a business opportunity to sell government information. That's where I'm at. I think if the president is speaking, everybody should have access to what he's saying. at the same time. It just doesn't, it doesn't smell right to me. Nina says, this sounds like manufactured outrage. Bloomberg and other financial services have charged professionals, huge money for faster information forever. If Trump's post still appear publicly and we're arguing about milliseconds, I'm having trouble seeing the constitutional crisis. Yeah, I don't know what the millisecond means. I don't know how. quickly you can act. But I guess if they're paying $100,000 a month for it, it seems to me that there must be some value to it. If they get something a millisecond before the rest of the world and they can make a trade or move a trade, it would have an impact. I would like to know more about what the advantage of that millisecond is. We got time for a phone call. Let's go to Jackie in Commerce Township. She wants to talk about the Dream Cruise. Hey, Jackie, how you doing? Good. How are you? I'm doing great. Okay, I was calling with the thing going on over in Birmingham there. Yeah. And I was calling, I don't know if to be of interest to anybody, but my Uncle Hans was one of the designers of the Corvette. And we were in the hospital because my grandfather was dying. And he said to me, hey, Jackie, you want to go for a ride? I said, sure.

So here we are. We go for a ride in this Corvette that had not been introduced yet. And I didn't find it to be real comfortable at that time. So I just wanted to let you know that I had been into a Corvette. Very cool. Way, wait for. That's a fun story. Thank you for calling in and sharing that. Yeah, the Corvats not exactly easy to get in and out of. That's for sure. I don't know if it's the most comfortable car, but it sure is a fun car. We're going to see a lot of them at the Dream Cruise tomorrow. We're going to take quick break. We'll be right back. Your calls are next. It's all talk. I'm Kevin Deetz.