Welcome to the Beat. I'm Ari Melba. We're following a truly new development. And Donald Trump's often flailing but quite serious legal attacks on the press. This one is not about Jimmy Kimmel or jokes or late night comics. This is about the heat on Rupert Murdoch's conservative empire. The OJ Vet Andrew Weissman is standing by and will give us his view and analysis.

He will assess a huge shot across the bow tonight.

The DOJ now trying to pressure war coverage at Murdoch's Wall Street Journal.

That's, of course, Fox News's sister outlet.

They're using subpoenas, and the government

is claiming illegal leaks to, according to many experts, abuse power to shape or stifle critical

war coverage, which, of course, the country is aware of because it is partly the press and information about the war,

its reality, that's made it a very unpopular war, plus the economic fallout.

And I have more on that part of the story later tonight.

It is a problem for Trump and the midterms.

But this story is one where journalists must actually also kind of weigh how we, in this case, our colleagues at the journal,

peers, competitors, whatever you call it, but how journalists report on something that Trump has

done more than any other administration since Nixon. How do we report on the government trying to

make us, our reporting, or our colleagues and competitors reporting, part of the story.

Well, the journal has decided to report on unusual subpoenas that its own journalist

reporters received from the Trump DOJ, as you see here. The Mastead is the Wall Street Journal.

This story is about the Wall Street Journal. This is reporting about how they are reporting and being potentially intimidated or punished through this government that they're reporting on.

Now, to be clear, this has been a losing revenge streak in legal moves by Trump, and you probably, if you follow the news, have heard about them.

We've seen these efforts against people. James Comey was a big story. He didn't interview on MS Now and the cold just yesterday.

We're also seeing it against institutions and journalism itself. That article I just put on the screen notes that the paper received grand jury subpoenas for records covering, records of its reporters covering this war.

Now, this is a huge deal.

This is about war, which is one of the obviously most important and grave powers a president wields. And remember, this war,

...