All of the above then brings us to last night, when Trump attempted to declare all of former US president Joe Biden's outgoing pardons "void" based on the purported use of an autopen, and treating longstanding winger conspiracy arguments about why certain presidential orders signed by Democrats (and seemingly *only* Democrats) aren't legal because using said autopen means the president didn't officially sign them into law; a nonsensical theory that has no legitimate basis in law, and owes more to schoolyard games of Simon Says than any sort of official rule or policy.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/17/trump-biden-pardons-void

Trump makes unsupported claim Biden pardons are ‘void’ as he used autopen

"Trump made his claim in a post to his social media platform that used his abusive nicknames for Biden and members of the House January 6 committee, writing: “The ‘Pardons; that Sleepy Joe Biden gave to the Unselect Committee of Political Thugs, and many others, are hereby declared VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT, because of the fact that they were done by Autopen.

“In other words, Joe Biden did not sign them but, more importantly, he did not know anything about them!”

I'll be honest in saying that I don't think this is a great article by The Guardian because it spends way too much time proving that Trump's autopen argument is "wrong," and that there is nothing abnormal about the president automatically producing his or her signature as part of their official duties. After all, being wrong about the law has done little to stop Trump's fascist agenda so far, and given that this is a conspiracy argument that has repeatedly been deployed by the ultra-right reactionary "fringe" of the larger Republican coalition against former US president (and Democrat) Barack Obama, a simple one paragraph debunking and a greater focus on why this conspiracy argument has resurfaced now that this same ultra-right reactionary "fringe" has become the dominant force in GOP politics, would likely have been more productive. Furthermore, the Guardian repeatedly frames this as a "claim" by Trump, when Downmarket Mussolini's Truth Social post at least, clearly indicates that the president is trying to void Biden's pardons by fiat, over social media, in a very direct sense. Legally speaking Trump doesn't have the power to do that just because he's president, and social media posts aren't legal edicts, but that just brings us back to the fact that Trump being wrong about the law and trying to rewrite it via public proclamations against his enemies, hasn't really stopped him from turning his animosities into official policies so far during his second term in office.

Given Trump's own words as reprinted here however, it is abundantly clear that he's pursuing the autopen argument to allow himself to target members of the January 6th Committee that investigated his 2021 coup attempt, which in turn ties into both Downmarket Mussolini's quest to punish officials that brought accusations or charges against him, and his efforts to seize control of the Justice Department and use it as an instrument of authoritarian vengeance for those (completely legal) activities. Here too we find the previous pattern by which the regime turns unreality into official action occurring once again; the Heritage Foundation, the same fundie fascist thinktank that wrote the Project 2025 document we can now confirm lies at the heart of Trump's fundie fascist agenda, produces a report attacking the validity of Biden's pardons and pushing the autopen conspiracy argument, Trump then immediately repeats those claims to reporters on Air Force One before saying the courts will have to decide but he thinks the pardons are "null and void," and then early the very next morning Trump attempts to literally void the pardons via fiat in a Truth Social post with no mention of courts whatsoever. At this point, all we're waiting for is the larger Trump regime to begin acting as if Der Führer's ranty argument has the force of law and the unreality cycle of transformational autocracy is complete.

Can president Trump actually get away with this scheme? I don't have the slightest idea, but the aggressiveness with which he's pushing the autopen argument, and the speed with which his larger political movement as already laid the groundwork to give it a go, strongly suggests that Trump isn't just ranting and he means to actually turn this aggrieved conspiracy bullshit into a very real attempt to persecute and neutralize his political enemies through the force of law.

Okay, so given Trump's move to undo pardons granted by outgoing US President Joe Biden so he can target DoJ officials who prosecuted him for real crimes he actually committed, and the above-mentioned pattern of Trump's aggrieved fascist ranting transmuting into official, state-recognized reality, while serving to justify oppressive action by the regime, what are we to make of Trump declaring that media outlets that report on him critically, including named organizations MSNBC and CNN, are "illegal" during that same speech at the US Department of Justice? Well, I think for starters it's safe to assume that none of this means *anything* good.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-claims-msnbc-and-cnn-are-illegal-in-doj-speech_n_67d4a0a4e4b0a37116aefc88

Donald Trump Claims MSNBC And CNN Are ‘Illegal’ In DOJ Speech

"The president gave a speech Friday at the Justice Department railing against news outlets he says have unfairly targeted him.

Trump singled out CNN and MSNBC, which he called “MSNDC,” claiming those outlets “literally write 97.6% bad about me” and are “political arms of the Democrat Party.”

He added, “In my opinion, they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal, what they do is illegal.”

Trump then argued that media organizations that report negative things about him “are really no different than a highly paid political operative,” insisting, “it has to stop, it has to be illegal” because “it’s influencing judges and it’s really, eh, changing law, and it just cannot be legal.”

He additionally claimed that news outlets cover him negatively “in total coordination with each other.”

Whether they're playing it cool on purpose, or not, this story is once again mostly being reported in corporate media as an extension of Trump's longstanding grievances with anything he perceives as critical media coverage and the outlets that produce it; although boutique "progressive" websites and nonprofit media have been a little quicker to realize why this isn't just "Trump being Trump" anymore and how dangerous it is to assume our new American Mussolini lacks purpose in his actions here.

Frankly, I don't think it's an accident that in the very same speech Trump previewed loyalty investigations into Justice Department officials, and attempted to usurp the power of his Attorney General by declaring himself the country's "chief law enforcement officer," he declared liberal establishment media an active political arm of the opposition party, and accused them of both actively conspiring against him, and engaging in criminal activity. What does it mean when the "chief law enforcement officer" declares media critical of him "corrupt" and "illegal?" And how much more ominous is that meaning when its set against the backdrop of a US president celebrating his election as a victory against (what is now) his own Justice Department, while promising what sure sounds like legal investigations into DoJ lawyers and officials that dared to bring charges against him?

The obviously implication here is that Trump thinks the DoJ should target and prosecute media outlets that are critical of him, he has the right to order the department to do so because he's running the DoJ, and anyone who opposes that activity is likely to find themselves purged from the department at a minimum, and quite possibly prosecuted themselves. What many of the corporate media outlets likely to be targeted by Trump's assault on free speech rights and critical media coverage have passed off as a vengeful old man "playing the hits" is actually a fully formed operation to seize control of the American legal apparatus or at least the prosecution portion of it, redefine what is a crime, manufacture consent to target his enemies with the US Department of Justice, and threaten to punish or dispose of anyone who dares to get in his way over a silly little thing like "the law." Trump may have delivered it like a drunk racist grandpa, but his speech is clearly a calculated attempt by the president to drastically expand his own powers, and prosecute his fascist agenda - whether he's doing it for revenge or not (he is), is ultimately the *least* important factor here.

This then dovetails into the methods by which Trump is actually attempting to accomplish this fascist, anti-free speech bullshit; specifically the larger narrative of unreality the Trump regime is constructing day by day. Trump is working to equate critical media with his political opposition, his political opposition with protestors, and protestors with terrorists, while his larger regime takes actions against that opposition as if what Trump is suggesting here were already indisputable truth. I hate to keep bringing up literally Hitler, the Nazi Party, and the German Enabling Act of 1933, but students of history will gladly tell you that Hitler's playbook for transforming Germany into a autocratic one-party dictatorship looks an awful lot like exactly what Trump is doing here.