Trumping the press again

No, I am not writing another book. This is easier and more fun—much like Donald Trump’s second presidency.

He learned the hard way in Term One. He is an accomplished politician now. He has his team in place. It is a Team of Team Players instead of that Team of Moles who reported to the RINOs not him, with Bill Barr being the phoniest and the least trustworthy.

Hegseth, Noem and Homan are deporting the worst illegals. Patel and Rubio also have roles in this. It’s the A Team he thought Republicans would give him last time. He made his own this time. The results speak for themselves.

His open Cabinet meetings may force people to be nice and cooperative for TV but I can imagine a Secretary of State Nikki Haley going rogue publicly in an emotional plea to save the transgendered whales from being dead-named or whatever the cause célèbre is today.

The biggest change in the presidencies is Trump finally standing up to the press—you know the ones who reported the first assassination attempt as “Trump leaves rally after loud noises erupt” as if he were a coward.

Fight, fight, fight, he said.

He is.

NPR reported, “ABC settles with Trump for $15 million. Now, he wants to sue other news outlets.”

Politico reported, “Trump sues Iowa pollster over survey that showed Harris ahead.”

Variety reported, “Trump Doubles Down on CBS 60 Minutes Lawsuit, Now Wants $20 Billion.”

That last lawsuit has cost the man who ran 60 Minutes his job.

Trump is defusing the White House Correspondents’ Association, a cabal of liberals and flat-out communists who want control of all coverage of the Executive Mansion. The He-Man Conservative-Haters club won’t allow Natalie Winters join in any journalist games.

The president is having none of this:

In the Trump administration’s latest assertion of power over the press corps, the White House intends to take over the seating assignments in the press briefing room, according to a senior official.

The plan may cause a tug-of-war with the White House Correspondents’ Association, the independent group that currently assigns seats and manages the relationship between the White House and the press corps.

When Axios reported on the potential seating chart changes on Sunday morning, some Trump allies cheered the news as yet another way to constrict the mainstream media establishment and elevate explicitly pro-Trump opinion outlets.

Gee, that’s a shame. Maybe if the WHCA had roasted President Obama instead of Just A Guest Trump at its 2011 annual din-din shindig, Americans might believe that the WHCA is unbiased and not prejudiced.

The press never joked about Obama. Hell, the press never used his middle name, Hussein. Donald John Trump let most of the partisanship slide in his first term. But after getting shot—loud noised to use the press’s term—Trump realizes they want him dead. All of them.

Well, the deadest thing this weekend was the WHCA dinner. Trump picked the right funeral to attend.

Politico sighed, “The press, somber and tentative after President Donald Trump and his administration have pulled access and sued outlets over coverage, has ditched the comedian at Saturday’s annual dinner in what’s been billed as a celebration of independence. Trump, a no-show for each of his previous four years in office, will be in Rome on Saturday for the funeral of Pope Francis.

“Trump’s supporters have relished what they call the snub of the mainstream media as an opportunity to brandish his populist credentials—a gesture made all the more poignant by his attendance at a funeral for a renowned religious leader.”

The press earned all the Trump humiliations.

When AP broke tradition and refused to call it Gulf of America, Trump kicked it off Air Force One and out of the Oval Office. When was the last time AP called Myanmar “Burma”?

AP sued and won. Fine, said Trump. He facilitated the judge’s order and withdrew those special plane and Oval Office privileges to rival wire liar news agencies Bloomberg and Reuters as well. Access is everything in journalism. Trump finally has taken control.

The AP had Julie Pace cover the Trump White House. AP promoted her to executive editor. She wrote this:

The AP has no corporate owner and no shareholders. If we don’t step up to defend Americans’ right to speak freely, who will? Today the U.S. government wants to control the AP’s speech. Tomorrow it could be someone else’s.

No, sweetie. AP is incorporated. It is owned by a cartel of newspapers and broadcasters. In 1945, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that AP violated the Sherman Antitrust Act.

Governments around the world control its speech. Its bureaus are censored in places like Gaza and North Korea. In this country, the government money comes from an entrenched bureaucracy that lies all the time. AP never questioned Fauci or any of the liars on covid.

Trump no longer needs AP or any of them. He often makes presidential announcements on Truth Social. This gets the news to the people directly without filtering by journalists—you know, the people who defend 60 Minutes splicing together 20 words from a 179-word salad by Kamala to make her appear coherent.

Journalists also are the people who dismiss James O’Keefe’s video exposes as heavily edited.

The administration is going after leakers. The Jeff Bezos Post reported, “White House ousts trade official over ties to ‘Anonymous’ author.

“George Bogden, a senior aide at Customs and Border Protection, was pushed aside after officials circulated a photo of him at Miles Taylor’s wedding.”

The wedding was in Jamaica in 2019. The story also said, “Bogden was also a guest at Taylor’s second wedding, in 2023, according to an attendee.”

The Bezos Post described Anonymous as Miles Taylor, a political appointee at Homeland Security who wrote a “piece in the New York Times describing internal resistance to Trump during his first term.”

In other words, a mole. Internal resistance to Trump is anti-American. Hate him all you want but we elected him president, carrying 31 states.

Axios reported, “Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday she is resuming the practice of attempting to seize reporters’ phone records in order to smoke out leakers.”

Biden didn’t have to do that because journalists were too busy covering up his dementia and corruption to bother with leaks.

AP said, “The regulations come as the Trump administration has complained about a series of news stories that have pulled back the curtain on internal decision-making, intelligence assessments and the activities of prominent officials such as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, said this week that she was making a trio of criminal referrals to the Justice Department over intelligence community leaks to the media.”

AP said in Paragraph 12 of its 14-paragraph story, “The Obama Justice Department, under then-Attorney General Eric Holder, alerted The Associated Press in 2013 that it had secretly obtained two months of phone records of reporters and editors in what the news cooperative’s top executive called a ‘massive and unprecedented intrusion’ into newsgathering activities.”

The press continues its lies against the president. Drudge linked this Fortune fable, “The Vatican asked Pope Francis funeral attendees to wear all black. Trump wore a blue suit.”

I found the truth on Twitter:

The press cannot cover a plane crash without attacking Trump.

A week into the second presidency, NYT published, “Trump Blames D.E.I. and Biden for Crash Under His Watch.”

Then the facts came in.

This weekend, NYT published, “Missteps, Equipment Problems and a Common but Risky Practice Led to a Fatal Crash.”

The paper buried the fact that it was pilot error by an inexperienced female pilot who had been assigned to the Biden White House and wanted flight hours in before she was transferred. The 3,400-word piece ended:

Direct, immediate intervention was needed that night. Instead of seeing and avoiding Flight 5342, Captain Lobach continued flying straight at it.

Investigators might never know why. There is no indication that she was suffering from health issues at the time or that a medical event affected her during those final moments aboard the Black Hawk, according to friends and people familiar with the crash investigation, which included autopsies and performance log reviews.

Two seconds after the controller’s cut out instruction about passing behind the jet, Warrant Officer Eaves replied, affirming for the second time that the Black Hawk saw the traffic. “PAT two-five has the aircraft in sight. Request visual separation,” he said.

“Vis sep approved,” the controller replied.

It was their last communication.

The Black Hawk was 15 seconds away from crossing paths with the jet. Warrant Officer Eaves then turned his attention to Captain Lobach.

He told her he believed that air traffic control wanted them to turn left, toward the east river bank.

Turning left would have opened up more space between the helicopter and Flight 5342, which was heading for Runway 33 at an altitude of roughly 300 feet.

She did not turn left.

But, sure, blame Trump.

The Democrats with bylines are not the only ones getting theirs this time. Biden sent the FBI to raid Trump’s home and the Biden administration’s coordinated attack of him in 6 courts in DC, Florida, Georgia and New York.

Trump is playing hardball with Democrats by cutting off their federal NGO money and clamping down on their illegal fundraising activities.

NYT reported, “President Trump on Thursday plans to direct the Justice Department to investigate ActBlue, the fund-raising platform that powers virtually every Democratic candidate and cause, according to a person briefed on the preparations. The move steps up Republicans’ effort to cripple their opponents’ political infrastructure.

“It will be the third time in three weeks that Mr. Trump has directed the government to target a perceived political enemy, a drastic expansion of his use of his powers to try to damage domestic opponents.

“Mr. Trump plans to call for an investigation by Attorney General Pam Bondi into ActBlue, which is used across the Democrat Party’s ecosystem to collect donations online. The inquiry is ostensibly meant to look into possible illegal donations made by people in someone else’s name, known as straw donations, as well as hard-dollar contributions from foreign donors.”

Foreign donations are illegal.

NYT sobbed, “Mr. Trump’s impending action represents a threat to one of the key financial cogs of the left, potentially hindering Democrats’ ability to compete in elections. It is likely to please elements of his base, for whom ActBlue has become a top target.”

I sure hope so. ActBlue has collected $16 billion online over the past two decades for Democrats. How much of that was collected legally, we do not know. Perhaps the Trump administration will find out.

The press certainly is finding out in this presidency.