This week was the perfect encapsulation of the second Trump regime: chaos, deflection, and distraction used deliberately to keep the system moving without accountability. Flood the zone with chaos and use the confusion as cover.
On the surface, the headlines seem unrelated. Talks with Iran were floated as diplomacy even as the risk of escalation was bubbling under the surface. The Department of Homeland Security quietly moved forward with a major warehouse purchase in Georgia tied to a Russian-linked LLC, raising questions no one in power seemed eager to answer. The FCC found itself dragged into a fight after Stephen Colbert’s interview with James Talarico, exposing how regulation can be leaned on to chill speech without issuing a formal gag – right before a midterm primary.
Across the Atlantic, the arrest of Andrew Mountbatten cut through centuries of deference and reminded the public how rare real consequences still are for the well-connected. And at the last hour, the Supreme Court stepped in to rein in executive tariff authority, puncturing one of the administration’s favorite tools of economic theater.
What connects these stories isn’t the scandal or shock. It’s how power behaved once scrutiny arrived. Announcements came before substance. Enforcement moved faster than explanation. Oversight was selective. Accountability was either partial, delayed, or redirected. Each episode fed the same underlying reality: momentum matters more than coherence while confusion and delay are their most reliable governing tactics.
The result wasn’t clarity, it was media churn. Enough activity to dominate the news cycle without enough resolution to force any answers. That’s the point. When everything is happening all at once, nothing has to be fully explained.
Welcome to another edition of The Lincoln Logue.
Monday, February 16 – CBS and the FCC Come for Colbert, Talarico
“The administration was playing politics and was trying to control what a late-night show puts on air, something that’s never been done before.” - Talarico to reporters in Austin on Tuesday.
CBS pulled Stephen Colbert’s planned interview with Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, citing legal concerns tied to the FCC’s “equal time” rule guidance under the Trump-era FCC posture. Colbert didn’t let it go quietly, the interview still got out online and instantly became its own viral political event, racking up millions of views and turning “broadcast compliance fear” into viral distribution.
This matters in the larger narrative because it is a prime example of what pressure looks like these days. Not a censor stamp on paper, just a corporate lawyer’s “we can’t risk it,” paired with a regulator’s implied threat environment. The point isn’t to win every court case or shut down every voice, it is to make institutions move at the White House’s pace.
In a moment where the hottest primary in the country was reaching its peak of popularity, Trump attempted to shut down an interview for the candidate he fears most, resulting in a Streisand effect moment that raised Talarico’s profile even more.
Source: APNews.com