The conservative media’s fawning coverage of President Trump has effectively provided his administration with its own propaganda apparatus on par with the Soviet Union’s, late night host Bill Maher suggested during Friday’s broadcast of his weekly HBO program.
Mr. Maher was rattling off a list of assets that could potentially help the president’s 2020 reelection campaign during Friday’s episode when he compared three right-leaning outlets to Pravda, the state-run broadsheet that served as the Soviet Union’s official newspaper during Communist rule.
“He’s got the power of the government behind him now – he didn’t have that before when he was just a clown; the Republican party is still with him, including those state legislatures; gerrymandering,” Mr. Maher said.
“He has basically Pravda in Fox News, in Breitbart, in Drudge. He went back on his pledge about the DREAMers last week. None of those outlets even mentioned it because they’re not in the news business; they’re in the Donald Trump promotion business,” Mr. Maher continued.
When combined those assets may give the president enough ammunition to successfully run for reelection notwithstanding the ongoing barrage of criticism he’s encountered in the six months since taking office, according to Mr. Maher.
“I’m worried about a permanent Republican majority. That’s what I’m worried about for the future,” Mr. Maher said.
The HBO host’s comments topped off an especially eventful week with resect to the president’s relationship with mainstream media and particularly the left-leaning MSNBC television network and two of its morning anchors, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski: he attacked the latter’s intelligence and appearance in a series of tweets Thursday morning, triggering criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike.
Mr. Trump has all but relented in the days since, however, and used a Saturday morning Twitter rant to take aim at MSNBC as well as competing cable news outlet CNN.
“I am extremely pleased to see that @CNN has finally been exposed as #FakeNews and garbage journalism. It’s about time!” Mr. Trump tweeted Saturday morning.
“Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people, but their low rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses. Too bad!” the president tweeted moments later.
Mr. Trump has been notably less critical of the networks’ right-leaning competitor, Fox News, and has promoted its morning news program, “Fox & Friends,” from his widely-followed Twitter account in recent weeks.
White House chief strategist Steve Bannon served as chairman of the right-wing Breitbart website prior to joining the Trump campaign in 2016. The Drudge Report, meanwhile, made its impact on the president evident last month when Mr. Trump retweeted the news aggregator’s report on a London terror attack before weighing in on his own.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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