Trump first-term official Miles Taylor on Tuesday highlighted a “blink-and-you’ll-miss-it” line from Donald Trump that he said serves as an “ominous” warning about the president’s ongoing attacks on the media.Read the full essay on Substack.Trump, aboard the USS George Washington in Japan, told troops: “You need a good, fair media. They’re getting better. They’re not there yet. That I can tell you. But they’re getting better.”Watch from the 44:15 point here:“It was a throwaway line for the cameras but an obvious signal to his friends and supporters,” Taylor wrote in his Substack email. “The president was nodding to his state-sanctioned media takeover.”Trump “is less than a year into his effort to use the powers of the presidency to pressure the free press into becoming a ‘pro-Trump’ press — whether through threats and lawsuits or corporate mergers — and he’s already seeing the fruits of that campaign. To him, it’s just the beginning,” said Taylor, citing the tilt to the political right at CBS News.Taylor in 2018 wrote an anonymous opinion piece condemning Trump while still in his role as Department of Homeland Security chief of staff. Trump last month ordered the Department of Justice to investigate Taylor for supposed treason over the article.Close