Trump campaign

CNN sent a cease-and-desist letter to President Trump’s reelection campaign over what it describes as a “false, misleading and deceptive” use of the network’s coverage in its recent campaign ad. According to the network, the cease-and-desist was drawn up by Rick D. McMurtry, who is associate general counsel for CNN’s parent company WarnerMedia. The letter takes issue with the campaign’s use of the CNN coverage in it’s “American Comeback” ad.

The organizations — the Big 4 affiliate groups, the RTNDA, the Media Institute and the Society of Professional Journalists — say that the paid anti-Trump ad it aired was the very stuff of American politics and fully protected by the First Amendment.

The Trump campaign has targeted a small Wisconsin station in a libel suit over a super PAC ad. Its fellow broadcasters need to step up now by coming to its defense and fending off a critical assault on their First Amendment rights.

Donald Trump’s campaign sued the Wausau-Rhinelander, Wis., CBS affiliate on Monday after it continued to air an ad from a pro-Joe Biden super PAC that attacks the President’s response to the coronavirus crisis. The spot features a graph mapping coronavirus cases in the U.S. over the past two months, with audio of comments Trump has made downplaying the threat of the virus.

Mark Zuckerberg placed a previously unreported call to the president-elect following his victory and campaign, which had spent millions of dollars on Facebook. BuzzFeed has found evidence that Facebook has internally lauded the Trump campaign “as an ‘innovator’ of a fast-moving, test-oriented approach to marketing on Facebook.”