A double byline in today’s edition.
While I am on special assignment covering the Trump campaign, my pal Larry King is bringing you a roundup of the rest of today’s news.
KING’S THINGS
By Larry King
I’m all for nicknames, but why always”Bibi” when “Benjamin” is one of the all-time great names???.... “Tommy Cutlets” on the other hand is something I say about ten times a day now…Boy, the Washington Post makes the relationship between the DeSantis campaign and Super PAC seem more bananas than my third and sixth marriages combined. The resignation of my pal Jeff Roe via X on a Saturday night is going to take about three days of coverage to unpack…. Taylor and Travis are great but they ain’t no Marilyn and Joe…How is it that I like my Almond Joys more than Mounds, but go with a nut free brownie every time?…..I’ve seen this Sununu kid on TV and all I can say is this Granite State acorn did not fall far from the tree. He’s a chip off the old pop…..Would it kill Mariah Carey to record the Dreidel Song?....I hope Rudy has enough money to pay for a good shrink….I’ve been on Capitol Hill plenty of times, never had the urge to have sex in a hearing room….Kate McKinnon’s “Saturday Night Live” monologue was full of chuckles but I liked her dancing and singing with Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig best….I’m not comfortable talking about abortion either, but I’m not about to lose a whole election over it….I don’t know how to pronounce “Shohei” or “Ohtani” but I do look forward to watching this kid play. Wouldn’t hurt if he picked up some more English….Who will I miss hosting my favorite TV quiz program? Who is Mayim Bialik? Correct.....I don’t know what a hard drive is exactly, but Hunter Biden definitely left the mother of all paper trails….But it is his uncle Jimmy that gets the full Washington Post treatment this time….Down at the salon, however, they keep telling me to follow the money and cherchez la femme when it comes to Jimmy’s wife Sara…I remember a time when ladies wore a nice dress and pearls to a Broadway show. Now it’s bluejeans and track shoes.…..I knew some Houthis back in Brooklyn, but not ones who fired on U.S. ships….I will be watching football on Sunday, but my friend Krysten Sinema is going to be negotiating an immigration deal on deadline in DC…..You think they finally fixed the shower pressure in the Des Moines Marriott? We will all soon find out… Is it just me or do the big shot holiday movies get more underwhelming every year?…Until Jack Smith explains what the rush is with all these appeals, I gotta think folks on Staten Island are going to be a bit suspicious…Be you Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, or any of the fine religions of the world, this is the time of year to put on some ice skates and drink some hot chocolate. Make sure there are plenty of mini marshmallows in mine! Happy Holidays!!!!!!!
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By Mark Halperin
Figuring out how to cover Donald Trump is one of the biggest challenges I have seen over the course of my career in journalism.
I’ve certainly not been perfect in my choices along the way.
But, as I’ve written here many times, the Dominant Media’s systematic errors in grappling with the man and his movement have represented both chronic professional malpractice and the greatest gift Trump could ever get.
Trump had two main activities on Saturday: an afternoon rally in New Hampshire and an appearance at a Vegas UFC event.
Here’s how the New York Post described the latter:
Former President Donald Trump had the crowd roaring when he entered Las Vegas’ T-Mobile Arena Saturday night with old pals Kid Rock and Dana White for UFC 296.
The arena jumped to its feet as Trump, 77, made a grand entrance, shaking hands with fans and UFC commentator and podcaster Joe Rogan ahead of the highly anticipated welterweight championship bout between Leon Edwards, of the UK, and Florida’s Colby Covington.
Here is the arrival video:
At the Gang of 500 brunch later this morning, you can bet that almost no one will have heard about Trump’s Saturday night foray (and not many more will even know what UFC is….).
If you don’t see the semiotics buried inside this video that explain why Trump is ahead of Joe Biden right now, you are not doing your part to understand what has been going on in America for the last ten or so years – or what is happening now.
As for the Durham, NH speech, Trump gave, you can watch it yourself here:
The Associated Press write-up of the rally ends with this:
Trump’s argument in New Hampshire resonated with voters like Brandon Sevey, 25, who was attending his first Trump event from nearby Dover. Sevey said he has worked a variety of retail and fast-food jobs and found it easier to find work when Trump was president. Plus, he likes Trump’s brashness.
“He’s loud and obnoxious and annoys people,” Sevey said. “But that’s what I like about him.”
I watched the entire Trump speech live. I completely noticed all of the dog whistles, troubling bits of rhetoric, and reddest of red meat. There is no doubt that any serious write up of the event should directly grapple with what Trump said and what meaning it has.
But there were also many moments in the address that reflect the reasons Trump is ahead that have nothing to do with outrage or controversy. They have to do with Mr. Sevey and the tens of millions around America like him.
The frontrunner’s performative skills, his connection to the audience, and his discussion of myriad issues on which polls show that more Americans prefer Trump’s record to Joe Biden’s – all of that was on offer, too. And I would submit that these things explain at least as much about why Trump is ahead than his citing of Putin.
I’m going to conclude this section by printing in its entirety the full Washington Post write-up of the speech. If Mr. Bezos wants to sue me, let him; it will be good publicity for both of us.
I’ve bolded the only portions of the story that address that second part of Trump’s message. As you will see, the rest of the story focuses on those parts of the speech that outrage the left.
The percentage of the story about those things, the framing, the citation of experts, the assuming the worst about Trump’s meaning and motives (not always the wrong way to go, to be sure…) – all of that reflects not just the choices of the Washington Post editorial team in this one case, but the way the wider Dominant Media plans to cover Trump in 2024.
For those of you with Blue eyes, as you read the story, try to imagine how a Trump supporter — or someone being forced into the arms of Trump by the nature of the Dominant Media coverage — would view the choices of language, emphasis, and reporting that are all too common when it comes to coverage of both Trump and Republicans generally.
The decisions embedded in this one story are a roadmap to
1. How the Dominant Media plans to cover Trump.
2. How Trump Derangement Syndrome works.
3. How the Dominant Media plans to inadvertently assist Trump.
4. How the Dominant Media still has zero interest in understanding Trump voters.
It’s hard to fix all this. But it’s not too late.
Here is the Post story:
DURHAM, N.H. — Republican polling leader Donald Trump approvingly quoted autocrats Vladimir Putin of Russia and Viktor Orban of Hungary, part of an ongoing effort to deflect from his criminal prosecutions and spin alarms about eroding democracy against President Biden.
His speech at a presidential campaign rally here on Saturday also reprised dehumanizing language targeting immigrants that historians have likened to past authoritarians, including a reference that some civil rights advocates and experts in extremism have compared to Adolf Hitler’s fixation on blood purity.
And he used the term “hostages” to describe people charged with violent crimes in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol.
The comments came as experts, historians and political opponents have voiced growing alarm about Trump’s rhetoric, ideas and emerging plans for a second term, pointing to parallels to past and present authoritarian leaders.
“Donald Trump sees American democracy as a sham and he wants to convince his followers to see it that way too,” said Jennifer Mercieca, a professor at Texas A&M University who researches democracy and rhetoric. “Putin hates western values like democracy and the rule of law, so does Trump.”
Trump quoted Putin, the dictatorial Russia president who invaded neighboring Ukraine, criticizing the criminal charges against Trump, who is accused in four separate cases of falsifying business records in a hush money scheme, mishandling classified documents, and trying to overturn the 2020 election results. In the quotation, Putin agreed with Trump’s own attempts to portray the prosecutions as politically motivated.
“It shows the rottenness of the American political system, which cannot pretend to teach others about democracy,” Trump quoted Putin saying in the speech. Trump added: “They’re all laughing at us.”
He went on to align himself with Orban, the Hungarian prime minister who has amassed functionally autocratic power through controlling the media and changing the country’s constitution. Orban has presented his leadership as a model of an “illiberal” state and has opposed immigration for leading to “mixed race” Europeans. Democratic world leaders have sought to isolate Orban for eroding civil liberties and bolstering ties with Putin.
But Trump called him “highly respected” and welcomed his praise as “the man who can save the Western world.”
In the speech, Trump also repeated his own inflammatory language against undocumented immigrants, by accusing them of “poisoning the blood of our country” — a phrase that immigrant groups and civil rights advocates have condemned as reminiscent as Hitler in his book “Mein Kampf,” in which he told Germans to “care for the purity of their own blood” by eliminating Jews.
The crowd of thousands in a college arena cheered Trump’s recitation of an anti-immigrant poem called “The Snake” that he has repeated on the campaign trail and popularized since the 2016 campaign.
And approaching the third anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, Trump came to the defense of alleged violent offenders who have been detained awaiting trial on the order of judges.
“I don’t call them prisoners, I call them hostages,” he said. “They’re hostages.”
The speech drew renewed criticism from Democrats. “Donald Trump is campaigning on an extreme MAGA agenda that would rip away hard-won freedoms from Americans — it’s as simple as that,” Democratic National Committee press secretary Sarafina Chitika said in a statement. “If he takes power, Trump will waste no time implementing his dangerous vision for America.”
Trump’s speech began with an economic focus, with a new tagline of “Better off with Trump” and a recitation of statistics comparing affordability under his presidency to now. But Trump became more animated as he returned to his material on immigration and the charges against him.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said that Trump “gave a great speech and knocked it out of the park” in front of a large crowd.
In a move that experts said could have the effect of confusing voters about the true dangers to democracy, Trump has begun deflecting from reports that he would seek revenge on his critics in a second term, accusing Biden of acting like a dictator because of the prosecutions against Trump. Two of the cases were brought by local prosecutors, and the two federal cases are being handled by a special counsel acting independently of the White House in accordance with Justice Department rules.
Without evidence, Trump is portrayed all four cases as a coordinated persecution against him because of his lead in primary and general-election polls. As he pushed that theme on Saturday, the slogan “BIDEN ATTACKS DEMOCRACY” flashed across the screen above him.
The speech ended with an instrumental track that Trump has continued using at rallies despite becoming associated with the QAnon online extremist movement.
I will say again: There is nothing in the Post story that shouldn’t be covered. To the contrary, the media has a moral and professional obligation to doggedly expose the dangerous, careless, and purposeful parts of Trump’s message that are designed to inflame and divide.
But there is also an obligation to understand and explain the appeal of Donald Trump that is separate from all of that.
Yes, read the Post story and be outraged at Trump. But also read it and be outraged at the Dominant Media.
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ESSENTIAL VIEWING
This Lions touchdown:
