DAN GAINOR: As troops face danger abroad, media wage war on Trump at home
America is in the midst of kicking the snot out of an enemy that has dominated Middle East headlines for nearly 50 years. Naturally, some in the press are targeting… President Donald Trump with ridiculous new allegations buried in the depths of the Epstein files. Why? Because journalists still believe they can drag Trump through the mud, even in the middle of a war, and win elections for the D team.
If this sounds familiar, it sure as heck should. This has been the media strategy since Trump first decided to campaign as a Republican and ruin the left’s plans for global domination. The press has run with every phony claim it could find: the Russian collusion allegations, "mostly peaceful" riots, and claims that the Hunter Biden laptop was 100% fake. Remember this Politico headline from Oct. 19, 2020, just in time to influence the presidential election? "Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say."
Now we know the laptop was real and full of scandalous information about President Biden and his family — which is why the truth was buried under a mountain of lies from Trump haters and the journalists who love them. They were protecting their guy — "the Big Guy," from laptop fame. So big, in fact, that he ended up pardoning his son, Hunter Biden before he left office. The 51 intel officials all lost their security clearances, but they did the damage they wanted. And the press — along with social media companies — hid the truth.
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Even notorious NPR lefty CEO Katherine Maher admitted during congressional testimony that the outlet had screwed up in 2020: "I do want to say that NPR acknowledges we were mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner." Of course, Biden still got the White House, NPR conveniently got funded, and the GOP got defeated. NPR won the trifecta.
That’s the context for yet another claim of a Trump scandal. Everywhere the media went this week, the goal was to include two names in the headlines together: Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. It doesn’t matter whether it’s an allegation — an old and unproven one, at that. Why bother to hold back? All that matters is trying to hurt Trump.
And the press was on board for every bit of it. There are the bitter folks at NPR, now vastly poorer thanks to Trump, offering up this headline: "Justice Department publishes some missing Epstein files related to Trump." Or Radar Online with the tabloid-style headline: "‘Missing’ Epstein Files Containing Explosive Trump Assault Claim Released by Pam Bondi Hours After She Was Subpoenaed by Congress."
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Some of them just can’t hide who they are. The leftist Daily Beast ran multiple pieces on the story, including this classic: "Creepy Nicknames Trump Allegedly Used With Epstein Revealed by Accuser." It included a subhead worthy of a gender studies major: "EWWWW." The author of that story, Daily Beast reporter Catherine Bouris, was an American studies major, according to her website — and it shows. Consider this quote: "I understand feeling powerless when faced with the looming spectre of the patriarchy."
Or her pro-trans complaint in another one of her articles: "Babes In TERFland." Bouris at least doesn’t pretend to be neutral. From that piece: "I do not pretend to be an impartial witness, much like I’m not impartial when it comes to other forms of bigotry. I do not think journalism (or whatever this it is that I’m doing here) needs to be neutral in the face of oppression and injustice in order to be effective."
That’s an important perspective as journalists grab their pitchforks and torches for the billionth time, convinced this time they will take down Orange Man Bad.
One interesting point is how some in the press are now terrified of Trump — or, more likely, his lawyers. Trump has scored two massive lawsuit victories against both ABC and CBS, since he returned to the Oval Office. The two networks agreed to pay many millions in legal settlements. Now, when outlets cover Trump, they’ve grown more careful. Several opted to use the word "uncorroborated" in their articles — which I’m sure made their lawyers and accountants happy. The Los Angeles Times, CBS News and The Associated Press all fell into that category.
Other news organizations went with some form of "allegation," another lawyer-preferred safe word. That included our friends at CNN, The Guardian and The Hill. MS NOW really covered its bases with "unsubstantiated Trump allegations." That’s a double-word score in Scrabble — The Legal Edition.
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That kind of institutional CYA (cover your allegations) shows that this latest batch of stories isn’t worth the paper they’re mostly not even printed on.
Back during the heyday of the press actively censoring the Biden laptop story, The Washington Post ran an opinion piece arguing that we couldn’t trust claims either way. It was what that same outlet would have called a non-denial denial in the Watergate years. Here’s the headline: "Insisting that the Hunter Biden laptop is fake is a trap. So is insisting that it’s real." Schrödinger’s propaganda, for the nerds out there.
It was the subhead from that op-ed that really applies almost 10 years later: "The lesson of 2016 is to be even more careful with potential disinformation in 2020." That’s what we’re dealing with here, in the midst of war where our enemies have turned the internet into a battleground, trying to endanger our troops and bombard us with lies. Where thousands of American lives are on the line every second, where the men and women who protect us are risking everything to do so. Because President Donald Trump and America are at war with Iran. And the press is at war with Trump.
The late, great President Ronald Reagan used to advise us to "trust, but verify." We should update that warning for the legacy media: "Distrust — they’ve earned it."