Although it seems you can’t fully trust what comes of the Trump White House — such as how quickly news that Kellyanne Conway had been pulled from all TV appearances was quickly denied — there are now reports that White House staff are struggling to give him constant praise and avoid leaving Donald alone or else he’ll be driven off point by negative press.
“If candidate Trump was upset about unfair coverage, it was productive to show him that he was getting fair coverage from outlets that were persuadable,” former communications director Sam Nunberg explained. “I would assume the president would like see positive and preferential treatment from those outlets and that would help the operation overall.”
And although former staffers said that Trump reads little online content, he is seemingly addicted to cable news.
To curb his urge to tweet, campaign officials said that they showed Trump positive coverage from friendly outlets like Breitbart, Fox News, the Daily Caller and the conspiracy theory website Infowars.
“He saw there was activity so he didn’t feel like he had to respond,” one former campaign official pointed out. “He sends out these tweets when he feels like people aren’t responding enough for him.”
Apparently the one thing Donald hates is being criticized on TV, so much so that his staff is having to “handle” him by showing him positive press that makes him feel better.
Politico reports that.
The in-person touch is also important to keeping Trump from running too hot. One Trump associate said it’s important to show Trump deference and offer him praise and respect, as that will lead him to more often listen. And If Trump becomes obsessed with a grudge, aides need to try and change the subject, friends say. Leaving him alone for several hours can prove damaging, because he consumes too much television and gripes to people outside the White House.
All of this explains why Sean Spicer goes out to harangue the media and insult the Anne Frank Center while ignoring all of the biased and bigoted statements and policies Trump has made for years. And why he claims that there are “Paid Protestors” appearing at Congressional Town Halls without a shred of evidence — not a single receipt or check stub — to prove it.
They have to say these ridiculous things in order to keep Trump happy.
But it may not be working as we saw Trump recently tweeted that some news outlets were the “Enemies of the American People” and there is evidence this is no idle threat. Once you’ve declared someone or something your “Enemy”, you’ve essentially justified any and all efforts to destroy them.
And the first shot across the bow has already been fired by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser, Jared Kushner, recently met with a senior executive at Time Warner to complain about how CNN is covering the Trump administration.
Kushner denounced CNN’s reporting on his father-in-law to Gary Ginsberg, an executive vice president at Time Warner (the parent company to CNN), during a recent White House meeting, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The report also claimed that Kushner has been voicing his displeasure behind-the-scenes to other executives at Time Warner, most notably CNN Worldwide President Jeff Zucker
Kushner’s complaint was not just about the general coverage by CNN, it was specifically about commentary by Van Jones and Anna Navarro.
Kushner reportedly named specific contributors of the news outlet with whom he has taken issue, specifically Ana Navarro and Van Jones who have both been outspoken critics of the president.
CNN’s spokeswoman issued a statement in response, noting, “Our journalism has never been stronger as we continue to hold the administration’s feet to the fire. Those are the facts.”
Now certainly Kushner has a first amendment right to complain, but right now Time Warner has a $Billion deal pending approval of Congress and Kushner as a White House Advisor is in position to potentially torpedo that deal.
As Kushner meets with CNN, the news network is currently attempting to convince Congress to approve an $85.4 billion merger with AT&T. Both Kushner and CNN have said that the merger, which could theoretically be opposed by President Trump, has not been brought up in their conversations.
Supposedly the subject of the deal didn’t come up during Kushner’s tirade, however Donald Trump during the election already stated his opposition to the merger, so would he be open to allowing it if CNN fired Jones and Navarro? Hmm...
Donald Trump remains opposed to the megamerger between AT&T Inc. and Time Warner Inc. because he believes it would concentrate too much power in the media industry, according to people close to the president-elect, who has been publicly silent about the transaction for months.
Trump told a friend in the last few weeks that he still considers the merger to be a bad deal, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified because the conversation was private. Trump’s chief strategist, Steve Bannon, is also opposed to the deal, another person said.
Additionally another member of the Trump family has an even more potent threat to a media outlet in process, Melania Trump.
As Rachel Maddow points out in this report the lawyer leading Melania Trump’s $150 Million lawsuit against the Dailymail, Charles Harder, is the same one who ran the lawsuit by Hulk Hogan against Gawker which effectively shut that media outlet down.
The suit — filed Monday in New York Supreme Court, a state trial court, in Manhattan — against Mail Media, the owner of the Daily Mail, said the article published by the Daily Mail and its online division last August caused Trump’s brand, Melania, to lose “significant value” as well as “major business opportunities that were otherwise available to her.” The suit said the article had damaged her “unique, once in a lifetime opportunity” to “launch a broad-based commercial brand.”
“These product categories would have included, among other things, apparel accessories, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, hair care, skin care and fragrance,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed on Trump’s behalf by California attorney Charles Harder.
The fact that the first lady is suing a media outlet for money she claims to have lost due to one false story is pretty bad, but If things go with the Dailymail the way they went with Gawker it could be hasta la vista baby.
Closing its doors. Gawker announced that its website will officially cease operations next week after its parent company, Gawker Media, was sold to Univision at a bankruptcy auction earlier this week. The business went bankrupt following the $140 million Hulk Hogan lawsuit and several other legal proceedings.
“After nearly fourteen years of operation, Gawker.com will be shutting down next week,” a statement on the blog read on Thursday, August 18. "The decision to close Gawker comes days after Univision successfully bid $135 million for Gawker Media's six other websites, and four months after the Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel revealed his clandestine legal campaign against the company.”
Trump and Kushner’s complaints about the media may seem laughable and pathetic on the one hand, but in truth it represents a very real threats against the media outlets who present coverage they don’t like where they could use both the power of the government and the courts to bend them to their will and way of seeing things.
I have my doubts they’ll succeed, but they could do an enormous amount of damage while they try.