Talking Points Memo

Allow me to draw your attention to a few exhibits:

First: this post from Josh Marshall, which I can post in its entirety thanks to its brevity:
 

After repeatedly pledging to bring grocery prices back down to pre-Biden levels, Trump announces bringing prices down would be "very hard" and won't happen.

Josh is referring to statements Donald Trump made during an interview with Time Magazine's Eric Cortellessa in conjunction with being named Time Person of the Year:

Yet already, the President-elect is moving the goalposts on some of his pledges, like lowering the price of groceries. "It's hard to bring things down once they're up," Trump says. "You know, it's very hard."

Exhibit two is a piece of original reporting from TPM's Josh Kovensky and Hunter Walker, who attended the New York Young Republicans' Gala Sunday evening. The event has become a place for some of the biggest pro-Trump influencers and members of the global far-right to gather and revel. Upon arrival, Hunter and Josh learned that four reporters who had requested credentials were marked down as particularly meddlesome and therefore would require a chaperone. Hunter was one of them. This meant that everywhere he went, the chaperone went. He even followed him into the bathroom.

The keynote speaker at this event was Steve Bannon, who had this to say about the coming administration:
 

"We want retribution and we're going to get retribution," Bannon said, adding, "They never in a million years thought we'd be back in power and they need to learn what populous nationalist power is on the receiving end. I mean, investigations, trials, and then incarceration — and I'm just talking about the media."

Their chaperone/minder, whose name was Ryan, turned to Hunter and made sure the point was clear. "That's you!" Ryan said. "You're going to get locked up."

Our editorial team has made it a point of emphasis to not take things Trump merely says and give them the same treatment as the things he actually does. We do this in part because we know the audience is burnt out on "warnings." We try to focus their attention not on things that may happen but things that will happen and are happening. His campaign trail economic promises — some of them may be smoke and mirrors. We'll just have to see. However, that doesn't imply we'll mistake which campaign promises were signal and which were merely noise. He talked a lot about vengeance, and that effort is already underway. 

Finally: Earlier this week ABC settled a lawsuit with Trump. TPM's executive editor David Kurtz said it was an "ominous sign." Marshall noted that many news organizations — including ABC — are simply a small part of a larger conglomerate — in ABC's case, Disney — and have less incentive to push back on Trump. The larger conglomerates have little to gain. "We will have to rely on news organizations that are owned by companies that are really in the news business, and mostly not in other ones," Josh concludes. 

TPM happens to be one of those companies that are really in the news business. In fact, that's our only business.