Weinberg: Trump, Supporters Kick Mainstream Media’s Butt

(Fred Weinberg) – I have been involved in the media—at literally all levels—since I was 13 years old. From the smallest weekly newspaper to radio and television networks and everything in between.

For those who might be counting, that’s a few months shy of 52 years.

I can confidently make this prediction based on that experience:

If Donald Trump has measurable success in his first 100 days, NBC’s Chuck Todd will not be hosting Meet the Press and may not have a job at all in the national media.

He may have to go back to his native Miami and become the sports information director at The U where he can talk endlessly about the Catholics vs. Convicts game as he did on a recent 30 for 30 ESPN film of the same name.

The cause will be his ‘I have a penis and you don’t’ performance against Trump senior advisor Kellyanne Conway who ate him alive during the confrontation he created.  When she got through with him, I’m not even sure he did have a penis.

Todd thinks it was outrageous that Trump had his press secretary, Shawn Spicer, attack the media for its reporting that Trump’s inauguration was smaller than Barack Obama’s first hoedown and, then, that Trump had removed a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. from the oval office by the pool reporter.  He posited that the former was false and the latter was simply a mistake.

And then, he tried to push Ms. Conway—whose most recent accomplishment was the Trump win on November 8—around.  In the history of bad ideas, that was near the top.

Here’s a brief selection from a segment which should make Todd—who I’ve referred to in the past as the Ryan Seacrest of politics—blush when he sees the tape: (from NBC’s own transcript)

CHUCK TODD:
— you make a very reasonable and rational case for why crowd sizes don’t matter. Then explain, you did not answer the question, why did the president send out his press secretary, who’s not just the spokesperson for Donald Trump. He could be— He also serves as the spokesperson for all of America at times. He speaks for all of the country at times. Why put him out there for the very first time in front of that podium to utter a provable falsehood? It’s a small thing. But the first time he confronts the public it’s a falsehood?

KELLYANNE CONWAY:
Chuck, I mean, if we’re going to keep referring to our press secretary in those types of terms I think that we’re going to have to rethink our relationship here. I want to have a great open relationship with our press. But look what happened the day before talking about falsehoods.
We allowed the press— the press to come into the Oval Office and witness President Trump signing executive orders. And of course, you know, the Senate had just confirmed General Mattis and General Kelly to their two posts. And we allowed the press in. And what happens almost immediately? A falsehood is told about removing the bust of Martin Luther King Junior from the Oval Office. No, that’s just flat out false. And the pool writer —

CHUCK TODD:
And it was corrected immediately—

KELLYANNE CONWAY:
But why — Chuck, why was it said?

CHUCK TODD:
— but Kellyanne, no, let me —

KELLYANNE CONWAY:
Chuck, why was it said in the first place because —

CHUCK TODD:
— I don’t know.

KELLYANNE CONWAY:
— everybody’s so presumptively negative —

CHUCK TODD:
— climb, climb into the head of that reporter —

KELLYANNE CONWAY:
No, that it’s okay. No excuse me.

CHUCK TODD:
But Miss —

KELLYANNE CONWAY:
Oh no, no, no, that reporter was writing to— on behalf of the press pool. That falsehood —

CHUCK TODD:
I understand that —

KELLYANNE CONWAY:
— got spread 3,000 times —

CHUCK TODD:
But it does not excuse —

KELLYANNE CONWAY:
— before it was corrected.

CHUCK TODD:
— excuse me. It does not —

KELLYANNE CONWAY:
And it’s still out there.

If the corporate brass at Comcast—which has good business reasons not to allow guys like Todd not to be quite that obnoxious in playing at bad journalism—does not see that sort of behavior as a losing hand after a few months of Trump successes, I will be amazed.  And note that Conway wasn’t even shy about using the phrase “if we’re going to keep referring to our press secretary in those types of terms I think that we’re going to have to rethink our relationship here.”

Nothing like that gets said in a Trump administration by accident.

The fact is that pundits like Todd are amazingly full of themselves for people who, somehow, couldn’t see Trump coming and have been almost 100% wrong about the election for the past 18 months.

Another myth these guys have been promulgating is that Trump is entering the office with the lowest approval ratings in history.

That may be what the pollsters say but nobody—nobody—has asked the question, aren’t these the same pollsters who had Trump losing big time?

Whether or not clowns like Todd get it, the fact is they have been consistently wrong about Trump, the election and what’s next.

I wish them luck keeping their jobs.

Mr. Weinberg is publisher of the Penny Press. Get to know more about him by visiting www.PennyPressNV.com.www.PennyPressNV.com.