We know President Trump is preoccupied with the news media, but the severity of his preoccupation is probably best captured at the end of Bill O’Reilly’s forthcoming book, The United States of Trump.
I just finished reading through an advance copy, and the most insightful conversation between O’Reilly and the president is saved for the very end, which according to the book, took place just a few hours after special counsel Robert Mueller gave his on-camera statement in late May about the conclusion of his investigation.
Asked how the two-year investigation “changed” his view of the country, Trump’s quotes don’t read like they’re coming from the lively person he is on TV. They read like they’re coming from someone weary or maybe even a little depressed.
He said the investigation “changed my life” and made him “more circumspect.”
“I’ve learned a lot,” he said. “I think this Mueller investigation will go down as one of my great achievements. Because the corruption would have never been uncovered. All these powerful people trying to subvert an election, people wouldn’t have known about it.”
By “these powerful people,” Trump is talking mostly about the collective national news media.
“I don’t know why they hate me,” he says. “I guess it’s because I’m an outsider. I did something no one else had ever done. It’s about power.”
O’Reilly asks Trump why he believes the media — “these powerful people” — are so “devious.”
“I think about it all the time,” he replies. But, he says, “In one way it’s positive. It shows that I can take it.”
Trump also said something he has said several times before, that the media will financially suffer when he’s gone. But he said in it in a different way in his interview with O’Reilly.
“You know, the media doesn’t care if they hurt families,” he said. But when I leave office, I’ll have my revenge. … Without Trump, what have they got?”
