Trump slams MSNBC for ‘illegal’ coverage, but media minimize his posts

Donald Trump keeps making news – whether he wants to or not.

And since many of his declarations are on Truth Social, the media, one of his primary targets these days, are largely ignoring what he has to say. Much better to let their pundits pontificate about the former president.

Obviously his legal battles, the New York civil fraud trial and the four criminal indictments, make news. He sometimes gets snippets of speeches replayed on the tube when he speaks at rallies.

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But here is one from his social media site that I can’t ignore:

"MSNBC (MSDNC) uses FREE government approved airwaves, and yet it is nothing but a 24 hour hit job on Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party for purposes of ELECTION INTERFERENCE. Brian Roberts, its Chairman and CEO, is a slimeball who has been able to get away with these constant attacks for years. It is the world’s biggest political contribution to the Radical Left Democrats who, by the way, are destroying our Country. Our so-called ‘government’ should come down hard on them and make them pay for their illegal political activity." 

Make them pay?

First, MSNBC is on cable, so unlike broadcast networks, it isn’t using government airwaves. 

Second, Trump is right that the network’s coverage of him is largely negative. But MSNBC has that right under the First Amendment; it’s hardly "illegal."

Is Trump signaling that in a second term he’d use the power of government to go after news outlets he doesn’t like?

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When the Americans for Prosperity PAC, part of the Koch network, endorsed Nikki Haley, the real importance was the promise of spending huge sums on the former ambassador’s behalf. As the GOP front-runner, Trump has every right to respond.

He did it with a post saying "a corrupt network of globalist RINO donors announced they’re going to spend TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS to prop up a puppet GOP candidate to try and defeat us in the primary…These RINO backstabbers are now going to launch a last-minute vicious assault against us in the early primary states." 

So Trump can call them "RINO backstabbers," but when he expresses outrage about a "vicious assault against us in the early primary states" – isn’t that how politics works? Rival candidates raise money to try to defeat you?

In a followup post, Trump called her "birdbrain."

Besides, Trump is averaging 49.3 percent in Haley’s home state of South Carolina, according to Real Clear Politics, so it doesn’t sound like he has all that much to worry about.  

The final bit of Trump news came from another source. It’s from Liz Cheney’s forthcoming book, conveniently leaked to CNN.

She recounts a scene soon after Jan. 6, when Kevin McCarthy, having criticized Trump’s actions on the House floor, paid a visit to Mar-a-Lago that the press described as a kissing-the-ring journey.

When the congresswoman confronted McCarthy, he told her: "Trump’s not eating, so they asked me to come see him."

"What? You went to Mar-a-Lago because Trump’s not eating?".

"Yeah, he’s really depressed," McCarthy said.

This has been the subject of widespread media mockery. Just about nobody believes that Trump, who loves to eat, was suffering from poor appetite and depression. That’s viewed as a fig leaf for the real reason McCarthy made the trip: to regain the ex-president’s support, especially for a possible future run for speaker.

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The now-ousted speaker seemed strikingly lukewarm about Trump at a New York Times conference yesterday:

"I didn’t say he’d be a great president. He’ll be a better president…

"If his campaign is about renew, rebuild and restore, he’ll win. If it’s about revenge, he’ll lose."

No response yet – Trump is busy posting about defense witnesses in the New York trial.

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All these examples are from a roughly 24-hour period. So while news outlets give plenty of time and space to Trump’s critics, his message, for the moment, is muffled.