NEWS AND OPINION:
Former President Donald Trump continues to bypass social media, sending out succinct missives through 45Office.com — his official post-White House website — several times a day, for quite some time.
The news media does not appear too perturbed about this. Something else has made them nervous, however. Mr. Trump has lost some weight and recalibrated his appearance to a certain extent, and the implications are making his critics jittery.
“Trump’s post-presidency makeover: Former president is losing weight, cutting back on M&Ms,” reported The Independent.
“The spray tan is gone, and the suntan is on. The bleached highlights are out, and the gray is growing in. Some of former President Donald Trump’s extra weight is off too, thanks to better eating habits and a near-religious regimen of daily golf in the Florida sunshine. ’He has lost 15 pounds since he left the White House,’ said one Trump advisor who spoke with the former president about his health recently,” Business Insider said in a new report.
“A slimmer Trump has Republicans wondering if the former president is already plotting a serious run for the White House again in 2024 — something he and his advisers continue to mull, with little impetus to make a firm decision before the 2022 elections. ’I think there’s an extra 10% to 15% chance he runs if he lost 20 pounds,’” one veteran Republican strategist told the Insider.
Those circumstances troubled Vanity Fair.
“Good news for Donald Trump’s waistline is bad news for America,” the magazine noted.
This sudden interest in Mr. Trump’s weight was amplified by his first on-camera appearance since leaving office, which aired Monday night on Fox News. The president — yes, he seemed to look leaner — spoke at length with prime-time host Sean Hannity on such topics as immigration, the renewed importance of the phrase “make America great again” and Republican strategy for 2022.
Meanwhile, Trump weight-watching is actually an old habit among journalists.
“Donald Trump says he has lost 15 pounds on the campaign trail,” People magazine reported, all the way back on Nov. 17, 2015.
“I have lost weight because my events are so exciting,” Mr. Trump told the magazine at the time.
THE SAME OLD NEWS MEDIA
President Biden and former President Donald Trump received wildly contrasting news coverage from broadcasters during their first 100 days in office, according to a new study from the Media Research Center, a conservative press watchdog. It is a “tale of two honeymoons,” the analysis said.
“During his first three months in office, the broadcast evening newscasts have showered Biden with 59% positive press. Four years ago, those same programs were hammering Trump with 89% negative press — a stunning contrast,” wrote Rich Noyes and Bill D’Agostino, who led the research.
The analysts reviewed all ABC, CBS and NBC evening news coverage of Mr. Biden and his new administration from Jan. 20 to April 9. The total coverage amounted to a sizable 726 minutes — or 18% of all evening news airtime.
“That’s still just a small fraction of the 1,900 minutes those broadcasts spent deploring Trump and his team when we studied the same newscasts during the same time period in 2017,” the two analysts wrote.
“The shift in tone is even more dramatic. Four years ago, Trump faced hellishly negative coverage right from the beginning. Our study at the time showed 89% negative coverage of the new president on the three evening newscasts, an unprecedented hostility that would characterize the media’s approach for the next four years,” they said.
The analysis also revealed that the Biden administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic won the most broadcast coverage — 242 minutes of airtime. That coverage, the researchers found, was 79% positive. Mr. Biden’s $1.9 trillion relief bill, meanwhile, drew 120 minutes of coverage — 86% of which was positive.
GUESS THEY CLEARED THAT UP IN A HURRY
On Saturday, President Biden referred to the immigration situation on the southern border as a “crisis.” On Monday, the White House issued this tidy official statement:
“The President’s use of the ’crisis’ label doesn’t represent the administration’s official position.”
Well, there you go.
“No, there is no change in position. Children coming to our border seeking refuge from violence, economic hardships and other dire circumstances is not a crisis,” a White House official told CNN, also on Monday.
WHERE’S KAMALA?
Certain news organizations — including this one — have wondered why Vice President Kamala Harris has not visited the southern border yet. The migrant crisis continues in the region, and interestingly enough, scores of Republican lawmakers have already journeyed to the region to see things for themselves.
Now comes word that Ms. Harris indeed will travel to a U.S. border state; she will journey all the way up to New Hampshire on Friday, with stops in Laconia and Plymouth, according to WMUR, the local PBS affiliate.
“It has been 25 days since Joe Biden put Kamala Harris in charge of the crisis at our southern border. Visiting New Hampshire — the opposite direction entirely — is just another ploy to avoid a crisis of their own making,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Rachel Lee told NHJournal.com, a news organization in New Hampshire.
“Tasked With finding the cause of southern border crisis, Vice President Harris heads to New Hampshire? Maybe they told her the wrong border,” quips Michael Graham, managing editor of InsideSources.com.
POLL DU JOUR
• 56% of U.S. adults worry about the pollution of drinking water; 39% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats agree.
• 53% overall worry about the pollution of rivers, lakes and reservoirs; 40% of Republicans and 61% of Democrats agree.
• 45% overall worry about the loss of tropical rain forests; 29% of Republicans and 55% of Democrats agree.
• 43% overall worry about global warming and climate change; 14% of Republicans and 68% of Democrats agree.
• 41% overall worry about air pollution; 20% of Republicans and 57% of Democrats agree.
• 40% overall worry about the extinction of plant and animal species; 25% of Republicans and 51% of Democrats agree.
Source: A Gallup poll of 1,010 U.S. adults conducted March 1-15 and released Monday.
• Helpful information to jharper@washingtontimes.com
• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.
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