BRIAN STELTER, NEW YORK MAGAZINE MAKE SURPRISE IN-KIND CONTRIBUTION TO TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN! Oh No! … Anyway: TV Executive Worries That a Trump Victory Would Be the Death of the Media:
It’s a well-deserved panic, as the legacy media is desperate for a massive reboot: Against the Corporate Media: Michael Walsh’s New Anthology Explores How Badly the MSM Has Fallen.
HEY JEFF, HOW’S THAT REFORM OF THE POST COMING ALONG? Washington Post pays to boost stories critical of Trump as subscribers flee.
The Washington Post is paying to remind readers that it is still pretty tough on Donald Trump.
Like many news organizations, the Post pays a small amount each month to show articles in feeds on Facebook and other social media platforms. But on Monday, the paper aggressively ramped up its paid advertising campaign, boosting dozens of articles related to the election.
While the articles about Vice President Kamala Harris were relatively neutral in tone and focused on her innovative digital strategy, her policy proposals, and her chances of winning next week, the articles that the Post paid to highlight about Trump told a different story.
The paper boosted multiple critical articles, including about Trump’s campaign rhetoric, his misstatements, his allies’ attempts to “energize him as he struggles to adapt to Harris,” how his campaign damaged Springfield, Ohio, his fixation on the fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter, how crowds leave his rallies early, and his questioning of the results of the 2020 election, among other stories.
* * * * * * * *
Prior to Monday, the paper had run just around a dozen ads all month on Facebook, which largely featured simple Post branding without any mention of Trump. Monday’s paid Facebook push was a clear acknowledgment that the paper hopes to win back some of the anti-Trump subscribers that may have canceled. It’s also a demonstration of just how much the Post is reliant on liberal readers opposed to Trump for revenue. Instead of using the opportunity to boost its tech or culture coverage, the paper leaned more into what it knows converts readers into subscribers: Its critical reporting and op-eds about the former president.
And yet, it’s not enough, as John Nolte writes: Washington Post, L.A. Times Continue to Suffer Massive Subscription Cancellations. “With only leftists for paying customers and no real advertising revenue to fall back on, the Post had to serve those customers. Well, leftists don’t want journalism or truth. They want comfort and affirmation. And when you deny them that comfort and affirmation, they go into a snit and cancel their subscriptions. When you cater only to the left, you live under the axe of, That’s a nice business you got there. Be a shame if anything happened to it.”
ROGER SIMON: Am I a Nazi, Garbage, or Nazi Garbage?
My first reaction when I heard Joe Biden was calling Donald Trump supporters “garbage” is that he (Biden) wanted to sabotage, consciously or unconsciously, Kamala Harris’ campaign.
I could be wrong, but, as the Zen Buddhists say, “First thought, best thought.”
There are other possible explanations, such as he was desperate to stay relevant in the final hours of his presidency and just happened to make his dopey comment at the moment Ms. Harris was making her supposed “important closing argument,” such as it was.
Or he is just so terminally gaga that he doesn’t know where he is or what he’s doing? But there’s nothing new in that.
His handlers (what a job they have) are off trying to convince everyone the president was just referring to comic Tony Hinchcliffe who provided the fulminating media with the one gotcha moment they could find in the endless hours of Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally. They were dying to call the event Hitlerite but the inconvenient prevalence of numerous Israeli flags in the audience made that awkward.
Trump, his sense of humor always at the ready, took advantage of Biden’s mumbling idiocy by arranging to be met at a Wisconsin airport by a “big, beautiful MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN Garbage Truck.” He wore an outfit to match. When it comes to trolling. Trump wins the Nobel Prize. (He should have won it for the Abraham Accords.)
Real Clear Politics’ Tom Bevan, a man I have known for years and respect about as much as anyone for his level-headed political analysis, summed things up saying Biden’s “garbage” comment “couldn’t come at a worse time for Harris.”
Does this mean Trump wins? Who knows, but it’s looking good, especially if you believe the prediction markets, though they are tightening a whisker.
Given how flat-footed that Democrats in the media and the White House were on Tuesday night, I don’t believe that Biden’s “garbage” comment was deliberate, but as John Hinderaker writes at Power Line, it too could certainly help to drive turnout for the left: Signs and Portents:
The Democrats are pushing all the chips into the middle of the table. With Kamala Harris calling us Nazis and fascists, and Joe Biden calling us garbage, they aren’t planning any sort of unity-fest if they win. While Donald Trump is laying out a positive vision for his second term, one that will benefit all Americans who aren’t financially tied to the status quo, the Democrats are preparing to go scorched earth.
After all, if you are in power and your country is infected with Nazis, fascists and garbage people, what should they expect? We will see a crackdown the likes of which our country has never experienced, with near-total control over the means of communication and lawfare that, this time, won’t only be directed at figures like Trump and Steve Bannon, who was just released from a federal prison. I think the Democrats plan on casting a much wider net to punish “Nazis” and “fascists,” with no one to protest except us garbage people, whom they intend to silence, one way or another. If the Democrats can get to 51%, they will try to cement themselves in power for a long time to come.
QED: Ben Shapiro writes of receiving a near identical email from a WaPo “reporter” to that of one he received earlier from a New York Timesman with the same goal of demonetization:
BEZOS REALLY NEEDS TO CLEAN HOUSE AT THE POST: WaPo Opinion Editor David Shipley Blames Bezos for Endorsement Drama, Tells Staff They Can Quit as Distraught Journalists Slam Bezos for ‘Conflict of Interest’ and ‘Thumb on the Scale.’
The Washington Post’s opinion editor privately blamed owner Jeff Bezos for barring the paper’s editorial board from publishing an endorsement of Kamala Harris, likening the decision to a “bomb” that “went off and now we are picking up the pieces,” according to an audio recording of a tense and angry Monday editorial meeting. The recording was obtained and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
During the meeting, the paper’s opinion columnists and editors, exhibiting a high level of distress, unloaded on opinion editor David Shipley, complained that Bezos was destroying the paper’s reputation as an “independent journalistic organization,” and repeatedly denounced former president Donald Trump. One editor fretted that the “one thing that can’t happen in this country is for Trump to get another four years.”
Shipley told staffers that they were welcome to express their dissent at the decision, but that after they did so, they needed either to get on the team or resign.
“Whatever you decide, I’m good with it,” he said. “What I really do want to impart is that you do not get stuck in the middle. Don’t be here if you don’t want to.”Yet even as he said this, editors at the meeting discussed circumventing Bezos’s decision by publishing an unauthorized endorsement of Kamala Harris.
Shipley said he “made very strenuous efforts, including a phone call I had with [Bezos] on Tuesday, to change his mind, but failed. And this was difficult.”
Mark Judge writes, “Now that the Post has hit rock bottom, it takes on the persona of the drunk who wakes up in jail, his wife gone, his job torched, his life in ruins. The Bezos intervention is the paper’s last chance to admit it has a problem.”
Related: AGAINST THE CORPORATE MEDIA: Michael Walsh’s New Anthology Explores How Badly the MSM Has Fallen.
DONALD TRUMP ASKS REPORTERS HOW THEY LIKE HIS NEW GARBAGE TRUCK:
PRESIDENT TRUMP: "How do you like my garbage truck? This truck is in honor of Kamala and Joe Biden." pic.twitter.com/7UwMZ8syvx
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 30, 2024
🚨 MUST WATCH: Trump tells the story of how the Garbage Truck outfit came to be. Hilarious! 😂❤️
"They said it might actually make me look thinner and BAM they got me. I said 'I'm wearing that on stage! I may never wear a blue jacket again! THIN was the keyword. They got me!” 💀 pic.twitter.com/khLqcdzStj
— Autism Capital 🧩 (@AutismCapital) October 31, 2024
Naturally, CBS’s Norah O’Donnell is big mad that Trump is once again doing basic Retail Politics 101-type stuff:
Grace? In the last week of a presidential election? To the guy who once said that Mitt Romney would put black people back in chains? To the guy who give a speech attacking the same people he calls “garbage” standing in front of a background that looked like it was designed by Leni Riefenstahl?
Or as America’s Newspaper of Record notes: Biden Calls On Deplorable Garbage Nazis To Tone Down The Rhetoric.
Speaking of whom (and no this one isn’t satire): Joe Biden Weirdly Goes ‘Bobbing for Babies’ at White House Halloween Event.
Old and busted: Build Back Better.
The New Hotness? Biden Bites Babies!
ED MORRISSEY: CNN’s Harry Enten: All the Signs Are There.
RCP tracks eight betting markets now, not just the most well-known Polymarket. All of them have wide gaps favoring Trump, and all of their odds look very close together. SMarkets and Betfair give Trump the lowest rating at 61%, while Bwin and Pointsbet have the highest at 66%. Those putting skin in the game certainly see the same signs that Enten does.
Does that mean Trump has it in the bag? No, and that’s where the rest of the polls come into play. We may see a few new iterations over the next few days, but the numbers are really too close for comfort in the battleground states where this election is likely to be won. Harris now leads in the RCP aggregation for Michigan but only by 0.5 points, and that’s only because of outliers from Susquehanna and Quinnipiac. Trump leads all of the other battleground states tracked by RCP, but only with significant leads in Georgia and Arizona. There are historical reasons to believe that the polls may miss a significant amount of Trump support, but again, that’s something we know only after the election.
If this comes down to fundamentals and the current data, then Enten’s correct — we will have seen a Trump victory coming for a while. But we’re not there yet, so … don’t get cocky.
THE SONG REMAINS THE SAME: Harris campaign dishes out six-figure donations to groups who support defunding police, reparations.
50 SHADES OF TRUMP: Debbie Dingell Fantasizes About Being Locked In An Internment Camp.
It kind of sounds like a cheap, unreadable bodice-ripper. Michigan Democrat Representative Debbie Dingell told CNN’s Jake Tapper of her fantasy of being locked in an internment camp. The hero/villain that she resists but secretly wants is President Donald Trump. Her true feelings leaked out on Tapper’s The Lead. Heh, heh, yeah.
Representative Debbie Dingell is the widow of the late Representative John Dingell, Jr., who is the nepo-Rep son of the late Representative John Dingell, Sr.. In total, these three Dingells have been representing Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor for ninety-three (93) years. Can you even imagine it? Dear People of Michigan, WAKE UP!
So here is what happened with Mrs. Dingell and Tapper on Monday’s show from Mediaite:
“[Trump] wants to deport Muslims, and he wants to start internment camps, and that‘s what we are busy talking to every voter. He’s telling you what he’s going to do. Believe him,” Dingell said.
“Internment camps?” an unconvinced Tapper asked.
“Yes, he has talked internment camps. You know what, Jake, you may have to visit me in one,” Dingell said. “I get worried enough when he talks about what he’s going to do to his political enemies, but he has talked about them in this with different groups of people.”
Evergreen:
JOE ROGAN EXPLAINS WHY KAMALA WON’T APPEAR (Video):
Not to mention the technical logistics:
Completely baffled by everyones collective intentional ignorance on this. He has a studio with massive amounts of expensive equipment and staff. Everyone, *everyone*, comes to him. He's the biggest podcaster in the world. She needs him, not the other way around. https://t.co/SAyXr6zVVU
— John Ekdahl (@JohnEkdahl) October 30, 2024
As Jim Geraghty writes: “Look, Either Do Joe Rogan’s Show or Don’t, But Make a Decision.”
If you don’t want to do an interview with Rogan, then don’t do an interview with Rogan — but then don’t reach out in the first place or place lots of conditions on the interview. Just come out and say that Harris doesn’t have the time to do a three-hour live interview with less than a week until Election Day. But to reach out about doing the show and then never agree to terms — well, that’s just about the worst of all possible worlds for Harris.
That’s been a leitmotif for Kamala this week.
ABC NEWS PROGRAM REVEALS WHAT NETWORK THINKS OF HALF OF ITS VIEWERS:
WHOOPI: I don't get why Trump supporters are so upset Biden called them garbage!
ALSO WHOOPI: Hillary was right to call half the country deplorable. pic.twitter.com/ibCqSVOn02
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 30, 2024
Meanwhile, at America’s Newspaper of Record:
Cast Of 'The View' All Getting Rabies Shots After Being Bitten By Whoopi Goldberg https://t.co/K7NQhPz3SM pic.twitter.com/GWEtO92Kc0
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 29, 2024
ACTUAL POUNCING AND SEIZING SPOTTED AT NPR AND CBS!
Meanwhile, John Hasson juxtaposes Monday’s warning from the Post’s boss alongside his troops, who are today in search of the aura of a penumbra of an apostrophe:
Flashback to 2020: WaPo ‘Perspective:’ Hunter Biden Leaks Should Be Treated As ‘Foreign Intelligence Operation’ ‘Even If They Probably Aren’t.’
NEW: Buzz Aldrin Endorses Trump.
Famed Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin on Wednesday endorsed Donald Trump for president, citing Trump’s prioritization of space exploration while he was in office.
“Over time, I have seen our government’s approach to space wax and wane,” Aldrin wrote in a statement. “But under the first Trump Administration, I was impressed to see how human space exploration was elevated as a policy of high importance again.”
I eagerly await the DNC-MSM cris de coeur on the origins of the American space program, and a new civility watch when it comes to Republican violence:
SCREW YOUR FREEDOM: Schwarzenegger Endorses Kamala.
Arnold Schwarzenegger has announced that he will be voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 presidential election.
The former Republican Governor of California – who has refused to vote for Donald Trump in the last two elections – shared his shocking endorsement on X Wednesday.
‘I don’t really do endorsements. I’m not shy about sharing my views, but I hate politics and don’t trust most politicians,’ the actor wrote.
Despite that, the Terminator star, 77, said that it’s time for the country ‘to move forward,’ and that ‘the only way to do that is with Harris and Walz.’
‘We need to close the door on this chapter of American history, and I know that former President Trump won’t do that,’ Schwarzenegger said.
‘He will divide, he will insult, he will find new ways to be more un-American than he already has been, and we, the people, will get nothing but more anger.’
Flashback to August of 2021: Schwarzenegger to anti-maskers: ‘Screw your freedom.’
Arnold Schwarzenegger has a message for Americans who argue that face masks encroach on their rights: “Screw your freedom.”
“Because with freedom comes obligations and responsibilities,” the Republican former California governor said in a YouTube video released Wednesday. The action movie-star-turned-politician’s remarks were part of a discussion with CNN’s Bianna Golodryga and Alexander Vindman to promote Vindman’s new book, “Here, Right Matters.”
“We cannot just say, ‘I have the right to do X, Y and Z.’ When you affect other people, that is when it gets serious,” Schwarzenegger, 74, said.
The ex-bodybuilder likened opposition to face masks to bucking traffic laws.
“You cannot say, ‘No one is going to tell me that I’m going to stop here, that I have to stop at this traffic light here. I’m going to go right through it.’ Then you kill someone else, and then it is your doing,” he said.
As Jim Treacher responded: Arnold Schwarzenegger Actually Said: “Screw Your Freedom.” “An Austrian loudmouth who scoffs at freedom and demands compliance with the government’s dictates… Why do I feel like I’ve heard this story before?”
Not to mention, this story as well:
JD VANCE POUNCES AND/OR SEIZES ON BIDEN’S ‘GARBAGE’ KINSLEY GAFFE:
Related: So Other Than That, Mrs. Harris, How Was the Speech? “Last night on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., the left-wing of the cross making up the National Mall, with the White House as the backdrop behind her, Vice-President Kamala Harris made her last stand. It was her closing argument. Her final pitch to the American people that she is presidential and fully capable of doing the job for the next four years. And Joe Biden, from the building behind her, bodied her with one sentence during her address.”
WAPO: Republicans “Sieze” on Biden’s “Garbage” remarks. We have an S-word sighting!
The White House initially provided a transcript of Biden’s remarks that purported to show him saying “supporters’” — a plural possessive. A few hours later, the White House distributed a new transcript that used “supporter’s” — a singular possessive word that apparently refers to the comedian alone.
The change came after White House staff talked to the president, who conveyed that he meant to say the comedian’s language “was garbage,” according to a person familiar with the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal dynamics.
In the meantime, Trump’s campaign seized on the moment, saying in an email: “Kamala Harris’ governing partner just insulted tens of millions of Americans. Will Kamala apologize and disavow Joe Biden’s remarks?”
Evergreen:
As Dave Weigel tweets, “Hear me out: Biden on Rogan.”
CNN MONDAY: It’s OK to call all Trump supporters Nazis, but don’t you dare make a terrorist joke about a Qatar-funded mouthpiece.
CNN yesterday? No, Joe didn’t call all Trump supporters “Garbage!” How dare you think that he did!
The MSM are already in an all out panic trying to spin this.
Scott Jennings terrorizes the entire CNN panel with reality. All of them erupt into a frenzy when Scott says that the Dems have “disdain for half the country”.
They can’t walk this one back. The panic is real! pic.twitter.com/eIr30zHSSI
— Clandestine (@WarClandestine) October 30, 2024
I DUNNO, I THINK THE PRESIDENT CALLING HALF THE COUNTRY “GARBAGE” IS MUCH MORE NEWSWORTHY THAN AN TUMMLER DOING HIS SHTICK:
Biden: Trump supporters are garbage.
CNN's Jim Acosta: Calling someone garbage is disgusting and hateful.
CNN's Kasie Hunt: Calling someone garbage is so incredibly crude.
CNN's Dana Bash: Calling someone garbage is too X-rated to share on TV.
MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski: Calling… pic.twitter.com/GefhywPQkz
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) October 30, 2024
OH, THAT STATE-RUN MEDIA:
Just think of the Politico as Democratic Party operatives with bylines, and it almost makes sense. (Why would they do this level of paraphrasing when Biden is on video? Well, it’s now less than a week to go before the election, and everybody’s going all in to somehow get Harris over the finish line.)
But Politico doing this when everyone can see the video of Biden’s actual quote? Well:
THAT WAS THE QUADRENNIAL THAT WAS:
How it started: US election: Joe Biden vows to ‘unify’ country in victory speech.
—The BBC, November 8th, 2020.
How it’s ending: Biden calls Trump supporters ‘garbage’ during Harris campaign call as VP calls for unity at Ellipse rally.
—Joseph Wulfsohn, Fox News, today.
Exit question:
BOTTOM STORY OF THE DAY: MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell to leave namesake show, move to correspondent role at NBC.
Veteran political journalist Andrea Mitchell announced that she will exit her namesake MSNBC show after the inauguration, but will remain as a correspondent at NBC News.
Mitchell, who occupied the anchor chair at the left-leaning network for nearly two decades, will continue in her role as NBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent and chief Washington corespondent.
The anchor– who turns 78 on Wednesday — broke the news to viewers on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” Tuesday.
“And after sixteen years of being in the anchor chair every day, I want time to do more of what I love the most: more connecting, listening and reporting in the field,” Mitchell said. “Especially as whoever is elected next week is going to undertake the monumental task of handling two foreign wars and the political divisions here at home.”
Mitchell has been a reliable Democratic Party operative with a Chyron for decades. In addition to this Media Research Center compilation from 2013: “Andrea Mitchell: 35 Years of Liberal Advocacy,” there was this classic moment from last year: Did Andrea Mitchell climb down to fake a grovel to Ron DeSantis? Why, yes – yes, she did.
BIDEN: Trump Supporters are “Garbage.”
I wonder how much longer Gutierrez will be with NBC News after allowing Biden to bigfoot Kamala’s closing speech?
Video of Biden’s “Deplorables” moment here:
BREAKING: Biden calls Trump supporters “garbage” pic.twitter.com/CU7WZEyKpl
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) October 30, 2024
John Gill’s staffers tried to walk the boss’s slur back, but…:
UPDATE: Oh My: Joe Biden Sabotages Kamala’s ‘Unity’ Speech by Opening Mouth, Inserting Foot on ‘Voto Latino’ Call. “So, just to recap, on the night Harris gave what is probably the biggest speech she’ll ever give in her political career just one week before the election, a speech where she claimed Trump was a divider and not a uniter, her boss Joe Biden tells the country that Trump’s supporters are ‘garbage,’ completely upending yet another anti-Trump news cycle that they hoped would be favorable to them. You just can’t make it up. As some of my colleagues have suggested, it’s almost like Biden’s doing this stuff on purpose to hurt her campaign. If so, all I have to say is ‘Thanks, Joe!’ Oh, and more, please.”
AND THIS IS WHY SHE’S NOT DOING JOE ROGAN:
🚨Wow. This is a horrific answer from Kamala Harris:
Reporter: “Voters ask, why haven't you done any of it already?”
Kamala: “I'm not President!”
Reporter: “You're Vice President!”
Kamala: “I'm gonna tell you what I'm doing as president when I have the ability, then, to do… pic.twitter.com/LKsGyCFdwU
— Steve Cortes (@CortesSteve) October 29, 2024
She can do word salads as soundbites, not three hour+ interviews:
I love that she tried to limit this to one hour. One hour with Joe is called "the introduction." https://t.co/Gs5cg8UYPX
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) October 29, 2024
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