‘The media will tank if I’m not there,’ so they have to let me win again – Trump
US President Donald Trump has pinned his hopes for a second term as president on the US media, saying they will help him win because “if I’m not there, their ratings are going down the tubes.”
President Trump, who has been engaged in an endless war against the mainstream media, laid his cards on the table during an interview with The New York Times, saying that in the long run, the news media will cover him more favorably for one simple reason: news outlets profit from the public’s interest in his presidency.
“Another reason that I’m going to win another four years is because newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I’m not there because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes,” Trump said.
“Without me, The New York Times will indeed be not the failing New York Times, but the failed New York Times,” he said. “So they basically have to let me win. And eventually, probably six months before the election, they’ll be loving me because they’re saying, ‘Please, please, don’t lose Donald Trump.’”
News stories about President Trump’s first 60 days in office offered “far more negative assessments than they did of prior administrations,” the Pew Research Center said earlier this week.
About six out of ten stories on Trump’s early days in the Oval Office had a negative assessment (that’s about three times more than it was for the early coverage for Obama, and roughly twice that of Bush and Clinton).
Trump has long been a fierce critic of major US media outlets, which he accuses of trying to undermine him during and after the election. He labeled a number of them, including the Washington Post, the New York Times, and CNN, “fake news.”
With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 11 октября 2017 г.
Trump added more fuel to the fire when he told reporters in the Oval Office in October that it was “frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write and people should look into it,” slamming what he described as the “tremendously dishonest press.”
Trump also tweeted that all network news stations should have their licenses challenged, and possibly revoked, due to “fake” and “partisan” coverage.
“With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for the country,” Trump tweeted.
Why Isn't the Senate Intel Committee looking into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 5 октября 2017 г.
Trump also expressed surprise as to why Congress has not begun to investigate the “Fake News Networks,” rather than wasting time on alleged Russia collusion. “Why Isn’t the Senate Intel Committee looking into the Fake News Networks in OUR country to see why so much of our news is just made up-FAKE!”
