On Tuesday night, Jimmy Kimmel was back on the air, and many Americans concerned about government coercion seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
Though Mr. Kimmel’s employer, Disney, should have never caved to pressure to remove a talk-show host, the thinking went, and though it took too long for business leaders to stand up to the president’s bullying, they allowed, at least corporate America was finally drawing a line in the sand. “This is about fighting for free speech and against these abuses by Donald Trump,” Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, wrote on X.
But if the first eight months of the Trump presidency are any indication, the initial capitulation by Disney appears to be the more revealing part of the episode. After all, it’s hardly the first time that corporate America has caved to the administration.
When Mr. Trump first issued an executive order against a prominent law firm, the firm quickly sued, and several more firms discussed joining a collective response. But by the following month, nine major firms had cut deals with the White House.
After Mr. Trump suggested he might fire the chairman of the Federal Reserve, some Wall Street chief executives gently pushed back, emphasizing the importance of an independent Fed. But these executives seemed to go mysteriously silent about Mr. Trump’s actual firing of a Federal Reserve governor. (Mr. Trump alleged that the governor had committed mortgage fraud, which she denied.)
Even ABC’s fellow broadcaster, CBS, showed some fight after Mr. Trump sued it for $10 billion (later increased to $20 billion) over what appeared to be the unremarkable editing of a news interview. CBS journalists appeared uncowed during a May 4 segment on “60 Minutes” featuring a Democratic election lawyer who compared the president to a “mob boss” seeking “protection money.” But CBS’s corporate parent settled two months later.
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