Jmac00
.475 A&M Magnum
As former President Donald Trump’s primary campaign shifts to the general election and a focus on the successes he had in the White House, the media is keeping pace with stepped-up attacks on his policy agenda.
Facing TV news coverage that is 89% negative, Trump is now getting hit with critical media reports on his dozens of policy victories as president, from immigration to the economy, that many voters recall favorably.
In a deep-dive analysis, the Media Research Center said the focus of negative reports on Trump from liberal outfits, including CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, and MSNBC, is turning from his personality and legal battles to undercutting his successes as president.
MRC’s Rich Noyes said, “During the last four weeks, nearly one-fourth (24%) of the networks’ GOP campaign coverage has been about substantive policy issues. That’s a big shift from 2023, when only a mere 8.6% of the networks’ campaign news discussed policy issues — and much of that was about the other candidates, not Trump.”
Hitting Trump’s policies comes as he is positioning his campaign for the summer and fall matchup with President Joe Biden.
Biden’s policies have been graded by the public as failures, especially on immigration and the economy. But the president has recently been blaming Trump and Republicans for failing to help him fix the border crisis and economy, and many in the media have been parroting the White House talking points.
Noyes cited ABC reports echoing the administration’s claims that Trump sabotaged the recent immigration legislation that conservatives were never going to accept.
“ABC anchor David Muir, for example, on Feb. 6 framed Trump as being opposed to what he characterized as a ‘solution’ to the multi-decade long illegal immigration problem, telling viewers Republicans were under ‘pressure from Donald Trump not to support the first bipartisan solution in years.’ Earlier, on January 29, ABC’s Mary Bruce had similarly cast Trump as a saboteur, claiming ‘Republicans are exasperated that Trump is trying to derail his party’s top priority,” Noyes said.
He found in his study that “there’s been a significant increase in TV news airtime devoted to the role of policy issues in the Republican race. This is a broadening of the networks’ hostile agenda as the media adjust their focus to the all-but-certain general election contest between Trump and President Biden. While most of Trump’s bad press is still associated with the various legal cases against him, the former president is now also being blasted with hostile coverage on immigration (86% negative) and Russia (95% negative). That’s a big change from last year, when the networks rarely discussed Trump’s stances on various policies.”
this bullshit is just going to get much worse.
