The Trump campaign, under mainstream media fire for denying press credentials to some publications like the Washington Post, is charging that the media is lying about its positions while giving Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton a free pass.
“If you’re running as a conservative, and you’re running on the conservative side of things, I think 95 percent of the media is out to get you from the start,” said Donald Trump Jr., one of father’s closet advisors.
“There’s nothing wrong with tough criticism at all. We’ve taken plenty of it. That’s fine and I think that’s fair, if only the other side were given that same level of criticism instead of free passes,” added Trump.
His comments about the media’s treatment of the campaign came during a Q&A on outdoors issues at Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership’s Western Media Summit in Colorado this week.
During an hour-long session, he was asked about the campaign’s recent decision to yank press credentials to the Washington Post after the paper ran an online story that said Trump blamed President Obama for the recent Orlando slayings.
“I don’t think it’s fair for a publication of that supposed level of credibility to go out and publish something that’s a blatant lie that influences millions and millions of people,” said Trump Jr.
He added, “I think it makes a statement that you shouldn’t have a media that is used as someone’s pit bull. In that case, the Washington Post was bought by Jeff Bezos who’s a billionaire liberal who’s used that as his attack dog to go after anyone conservative to protect his corporate interests.”
Trump also said that many reporters have expressed their leftist leanings to him.
“I’ve met many of them and become friendly with a lot of them and that’s sort of the inside joke that I’ve had. I’d never say their names because they’d get killed by their publications but it’s the inside joke of, ‘Yeah, I know I’m on the other side, but,’ and I’d say, ‘Wait a minute, how can you be from one of the largest publications in the world and be on the other side? That’s not what I understand journalism and free speech to be,'” he said.
He also expressed concern that publications and readers have become more partisan, and not eager to see both sides.
“I think both the left and the right in journalism these days they’ve been very polarized and people have picked sides on those things. You’re no longer getting a fair and balanced news coverage and when you look at social media, you look at the things people follow, you know, the algorithms that all of these companies use, people read what they want to read, they see what they want to see, they don’t get to see the other side of that story any more and I think that’s a shame,” said Trump.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
