The Republican National Committee on Monday began a fundraising drive off of President Trump’s negative media coverage ahead of July’s contribution deadline.
“We’re not fundraising to compete with the Democrats,” the email, titled “The real competition,” stated. “Why would they even need money at this point? They get free help from the media every hour of every day. Here’s the proof: 92% of media coverage has been negative against the President.”
“That’s who we’re competing with,” the note continued.
The RNC messaging could be referring to a study released by conservative watchdog Media Research Center on July 24, which found 92 percent of ABC, CBS, and NBC’s evening news programs from Jan. 20, 2017, to June 30, 2018, were “hostile to the administration.” Scholars from Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy identified similar levels of critical press regarding the Trump presidency on CNN, NBC, and CBS in a study published in May 2017.
The party’s adversarial stance toward news outlets follows a week of escalating tensions between Trump and the media.
Trump on Sunday took to Twitter to accuse reporters of being “driven insane by their Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
“When the media — driven insane by their Trump Derangement Syndrome — reveals internal deliberations of our government, it truly puts the lives of many, not just journalists, at risk! Very unpatriotic!” Trump tweeted. “Freedom of the press also comes with a responsibility to report the news… accurately.”
[Also read: New York Times publisher: I told Trump his anti-press language is ‘increasingly dangerous’]
