Trump Tells Reporters What No Other President Dared: You're Part of the Democratic Party
I was recently re-reading William F. Buckley’s “Up from Liberalism,” and I noticed several mentions of scorn for the “liberal press.” This was published in 1959, before anyone really called it the “media,” but the criticisms of the leftward bent of our reporters and mass-media institutions were still there.
Yet, even in 2018, the mainstream media refuses to characterize itself as “liberal,” much less “progressive” or “left-leaning.” I find this rather shocking, considering that what they’re passing off as journalism is stuff like Chris Cuomo’s daily rants or Jim Acosta’s theatrics in the Brady Room of the White House. And that’s just CNN.
For the most part, Republican presidents have shied away from outright confrontation with the leftward tendencies of the media, leaving that to surrogates, if they do it at all. Donald Trump is going quite a bit further than that: He just outright called the news media a de facto arm of the Democratic Party.
According to The Daily Caller, the exchange came during a Monday White House news conference that was supposed to be about the new trade agreement signed between the United States, Canada and Mexico.
However, reporters instead peppered the presser with questions about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and Democrats calling for the nomination to be withdrawn.
The president went on the attack, particularly over how the media had covered the Democrats taking aim at the nominee.
“I know them too well,” Trump said of Senate Democrats. “You know what? They are not angels.”
He called out Sens. Richard Blumenthal, Cory Booker and Dianne Feinstein by name — especially criticizing the way Feinstein sat on a letter accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of committing a sexual assaul in the early 1980s. Feinstein had the letter since July, but failed pass it on to the FBI until after Kavanaugh’s initial hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee had finished.
Trump then turned his ire to the media.
“More importantly, in a sense, for (Feinstein) to have waited for that period of time, and now for you Democrats…” the president said.
“And I guess I’m including you, too, the media. I consider you a part of the Democrat Party.”
Trump: I consider the media part of the Democratic party. pic.twitter.com/nq5P7peqKe
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) October 1, 2018
“But, for you, for the Democrats, to be talking about, ‘We want more time for the FBI.’
“If you wanted more time for the FBI, why didn’t Dianne Feinstein bring this up?” Trump said, according to The Daily Caller.
He also noted that the letter “was confidential until the hearing was over. After it was over, they went public.”
“Why didn’t they do it during the hearing?” he said, according to The Daily Caller. “You know why? Because they are dishonest people.”
Attacks on Democrats and the media are, of course, nothing new from any part of the White House. Conflating them directly, however, is a relative novelty.
It’s not materially false, however. With the exception of Fox News, where on your TV can you find anything substantially to the right of the Democrats’ platform?
They buy into most of the liberal narrative — the election was stolen, only racists support Trump, Brett Kavanaugh was more likely than not an alcohol-crazed abuser.
I wouldn’t exactly say the same thing that President Trump did about the media and Democrats, mind you. Then again, if the shoe fits (and has fit since at least 1959), they need to wear it.
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