Last week former President Trump lashed out at the Republican debate committee for scheduling debates with “hostile Networks with angry, TRUMP & MAGA hating anchors asking the ‘questions.'” “Why subject yourself to being libeled and abused?” he asked.
He also took issue with the second debate being held a the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif., because the chairman of the board of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation is Fred Ryan, who worked in the Reagan administration and was the former president’s chief of staff from 1989 to 1995 — and who is also the publisher of the Washington Post.
OK, fine. I suppose that Ryan’s involvement could be a legitimate concern for Trump (even though he didn’t have a problem participating in a debate at the Reagan Library in 2015 when Ryan was also the board’s chairman). Trump should know better than anyone that he doesn’t get treated fairly by left-wing media outlets.
So why did Trump agree to do a CNN town hall in New Hampshire next week? Has he learned nothing from the last seven years?
🟡NEW: Donald Trump demonized “fake news.” So Ron DeSantis cut them off entirely.
Now Trump is back on CNN and mocking DeSantis for not doing the same. Shouldn’t have taken him literally! https://t.co/3rqih9lcTn
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) May 2, 2023
The event, hosted by “CNN This Morning” anchor Kaitlan Collins and airing at 9 p.m. ET on May 10, will feature the former president taking questions from New Hampshire Republicans and undeclared voters who plan to vote in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.
Trump is the present front-runner in the Republican field but has been indicted in Manhattan in a case involving hush money payments, made during the 2016 campaign, to women who claimed they had extramarital affairs with Trump, which he denies. He also is being sued by former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who alleges that Trump sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s and subsequently defamed her after she went public. Trump has also denied Carroll’s allegations.
It’s obvious to everyone with half a brain that Trump won’t get a fair shake from CNN. Why does he keep prostrating himself before these dishonest left-wing media hacks?
Does he think his charm offensive will sway CNN viewers who have been fed a constant diet of Trump Derangement Syndrome from the moment the former president came down the gold escalator? He’s like Charlie Brown with the football at this point.
And while we’re on the topic, what’s up with Trump’s weird obsession with New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman?
The only other journalist who can match her access to a recent president is Lou Cannon, who spent much of a lifetime covering Ronald Reagan, a far less enervating task than Haberman’s. Trump has called her “a crooked H[illary] flunky” and “an unprofessional hack” while giving her endless interviews, including three for this book. She is an exemplar of her craft, relentless, judicious and even-keeled, giving credit, where due, to her colleagues and fellow biographers, while admitting and adjusting her occasional mistakes.
During an interview for Haberman’s biography of Trump, he reportedly said, “I love being with her; she’s like my psychiatrist.”
Trump spends his days on social media ranting about the fake-news media — and it’s a frequent topic at his rallies — but he doesn’t seem to have a problem giving the New York Times and CNN credibility by offering himself up for interviews. (For the record, Trump has never granted PJ Media an interview.)
This doesn’t make sense.
Does Trump believe they’ll wake up one day, see the light, and finally understand his greatness? That he’ll once again be the darling of swanky New York cocktail parties and be feted by the people who have been actively trying to destroy him? I’ve got news for Trump: it ain’t going to happen.
In a way, it’s kind of sad. He’s like the kid desperate to sit at the cool kids’ table, and no matter how many times he gets stuffed into his locker, he keeps returning for the crumbs they throw him. Or a better analogy might be that he’s a wife who just can’t quit her abusive husband. Sure, he blackens her eyes occasionally, but she believes in her heart that he’s going to change someday and be the perfect husband. It’s Trump’s Achilles’ heel.
Whatever Trump’s reasons for returning to left-wing media outlets again and again, he needs to stop. It’s not helping him. This is not 2016 when CNN gave Trump free air time to boost its ratings — until it didn’t. The mask came off and the knives came out the minute CNN realized he might actually win the 2016 election. There was no going back after the Russiagate scam.
Trump should take a page from Ron DeSantis’s playbook and refuse to play footsie with the left-wing media. More often than not, left-wing hit pieces on the Florida governor note that “Gov. DeSantis did not respond to a request for comment.” DeSantis said last year that many Republicans “would try to impress the corporate media. Don’t work with them. You’ve got to beat them. You’ve got to fight back against them.” In other words, don’t legitimize the lies and disinformation.
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