It’s hard to imagine that the media’s Trump Derangement Syndrome can get any worse, but every day, there is a new example that there is no end to it.
For this week’s Liberal Media Scream, we’re featuring the Atlantic’s never Trumper David Frum, who said that President Donald Trump might arrest or detain people to stop them from voting.
On MS Now, he went through a list of possibilities Trump could employ, such as using troops to intimidate voters or detain them to check their immigration status. Citing Supreme Court precedent, he suggested that voters could be detained at 3 p.m. on Election Day and held until the polls close.
Of course, many Americans vote early and have since the COVID-19 crisis, so his fearmongering about Election Day trickery is pointless. But it makes for good MS Now TV.
“That’s an interesting point that David makes,” cheered Ali Velshi, who was hosting Deadline: White House on MS Now. “If dirty tricks are all that’s left, you’re going to put all your energy into the dirty tricks.”
From Friday afternoon’s Deadline: White House on MS Now:
VELSHI: There continue to be real and massive challenges against free and fair voting in 2026.
FRUM: Look, Donald Trump has made, and his family have made, $1 billion in his first year as president. That’s the kind of behavior that used to be not just a little bit illegal in the United States, but massively criminal in the United States. Now, the rules seem to be different, or at least they’re enforced differently. But the law could come back into effect in a different political alignment. And that has to be a very scary possibility for Donald Trump.
So he will do anything. And we — I talked on my podcast this week with Michael Waldman of the Brennan Center — he might do, you know, one of the things that the Supreme Court has authorized is the brief detention of American citizens to check that they are indeed American citizens, brief detention. How brief is brief? Can you arrest them at 3:00 in the afternoon and hold them till after the polls close? Is that brief?
Can you put troops on the streets in marginal areas in an effort to intimidate people who maybe have a member of their family who has a doubtful immigration status, and don’t want to risk any kind of encounter with the police? Can you, aside from gerrymandering, can you do other kinds of things that are at the margin of the law to shape the electorate in such a way that it’s more favorable? Now, in the face of the kind of massive public discontent that seems to be brewing in the country, none of this may be enough, but when a dirty trick is the only trick you have, the dirty trick becomes your entire repertoire.
VELSHI: Basil [Smikle], this is important because, and by the way, they’re probably instructions, we can talk about this for the next several months about, “OK, if you think you’re at risk of being detained for a few hours,” as I am a man of a certain color in New York, “better vote early,” so that I’ve got that chance. But that’s an interesting point that David makes. If dirty tricks are all that’s left, you’re going to put all your energy into the dirty tricks.
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Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Time for Frum to put on a tin foil hat. Could there be a better display of Trump Derangement Syndrome?”
Rating: FIVE out of FIVE screams.
