Plummeting popularity sets Trump on a war against the truth

As I was watching today, I I was thinking about the fact that if there was any question, any question at all from anywhere from anyone about whether or not American democracy is under threat right now. The President of the United States was asked just hours ago about his calls for an unconstitutional federal takeover of elections. He was also asked about whether or not he will accept the will of the voters in November. And see for yourself what he said.

We can't allow cheating in elections. Now, if we need to put in federal controls as opposed to state controls. Remember this, they're really an agent. They're really accumulating the votes for who wins an election. If they can't do it honestly and it can't be done properly and timely, then something else has to happen.

Will you trust the results of the midterms if Republicans lose control of Congress?

I will if the elections are honest.

Trump is laying the groundwork. We all know this, we've all watched what he has been doing and he has really upped his game in the last few days. He's laying the groundwork to undermine the validity of the midterm elections. Make absolutely no mistake about it. I mean, it's the same language he used in the lead up to the 2020 election. The same language he used to sow doubt in the outcome if he did not win. And when he says, when you just heard him say, if the elections are honest, he means if his party wins. That's what he means. And there's a simple and very obvious reason he's doing this. And it's because he's increasingly unpopular. He does not think he and his party can win on their own.

And there's reason he thinks that because a new Quinnipiac poll out today finds Trump's approval rating is now just 37%. And that's three points down from where he was in that same poll just three weeks ago. On every single issue, from the economy to immigration to foreign policy, Trump's approval rating continues to sink to new and deeper lows.

And so Trump is doing what he has done his entire life. He's trying to lie and cheat his way out of it. He's denying that there is any way voters could reject the path that he and his party have put us on. And that's not just Trump's self-delusion.

It's an intentional strategy. And a crucial element of that strategy, a critical part of how he tries to lie his way out of unpopularity is to try and make it so that his narrative is the only one people hear. That's his dream. That's what he wants to happen.

And I don't just mean by being louder than his critics or by saying things that are more outlandish than his critics. Since taking office, Trump has done everything he can to cut off access to reliable information about his administration. He banned the Associated Press from the White House press pool. He killed all federal funding for public broadcasting. He shuttered the overseas offices of Voice of America News. He took control of the military news outlet Stars and Stripes. His minion over at the FCC has made mob-like threats against broadcast networks that do any sort of critical coverage of his administration. He's threatened news organizations with lawsuits over their reporting, sometimes getting them to fork over millions of dollars that they could have spent on quality journalism. He's put new restrictions on Pentagon reporters, forcing the most legitimate press out of the building altogether and replaced them with right-wing propagandists. And that's not to mention what he's done to the White House briefing room, which is make it Kremlin-esque. His FBI has even taken the extreme step of raiding the home of a Washington Post reporter who happened to be very well-sourced within the federal government that he's currently running.

At every turn, he's tried to cut off the public's access to truth, to real fact-based reporting about how he's running the country. What he desperately wants is for his warped version of the story to be the only thing out there, unchallenged, unchecked, no one questioning it. And the thing is that all of the powerful people trying to get into his good graces know that. And many of them have been more than happy to help him do it.

People like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, who allowed disinformation to spread like wildfire on the social media platforms they control. Or the executives at ABC Disney, who gave Trump millions to settle a BS lawsuit with ABC News and pulled late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel off the air before bowing to public pressure to reverse the decision. Or billionaire father and son duo Larry and David Ellison, who took over CBS News, paid Trump millions to settle another BS lawsuit, and then handed editorial control to a right-wing apologist who had no experience running a major news organization and is somehow trying to run one of the most famous and most beloved news magazine shows in the country into the ground.

They also canceled a beloved late-night comedy show to silence comedian and Trump critic Stephen Colbert. And then there's this guy, the founder of Amazon and the fourth richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos. Now, in just the past week, we've watched this man line the Trump family's pockets by spending $75 million on the Melania Trump documentary, which just says Rotten Tomatoes is not doing so hot.

Cozy

up

to

Trump's

Secretary

of

Defense

Pete

Hegseth

for

a

photo

op

at

his

space

company.

There

you

can

see

that

weird

thing

on

your

screen.

And

that

was

all

before

today

when

Jeff

Bezos

decided

to

gut

one

of

America's

most

storied

newspaper,

a

paper

that

made

its

name

holding

powerful

presidents

accountable.

The

Post

laid

off

more

than

300

journalists

and

about

30%

of

its

total

workforce.

And

the

cuts

reportedly

affected

all

departments

of

the

paper.

We're

still

learning

all

the

people

impacted.

Among

the

sections

hit

hardest

were

the

paper's

sports

desk,

its

international

desk,

and

even

its

metro

desk.

Its

metro

desk

is

of

course

the

desk

where

Washington

Post

legends

Woodward

and

Bernstein

broke

the

Watergate

story

wide

open.

Now,

among

the

journalists

who

lost

their

jobs

today

were

the

Post

Cairo

Bureau

Chief,

along

with

the

paper's

entire

roster

of

Middle

East

reporters

and

editors.

The

Post

also

laid

off

its

Ukraine

correspondent,

Lizzie

Johnson,

while

she

was

still

overseas

reporting

from

a

warzone

in

subzero

temperatures.

That's

where

she

learned

that

she

was

going

to

be

laid

off.

And

in

a

particularly

galling

move,

even

though

those

are

all

galling

moves,

the

Post

also

laid

off

the

tech

reporter

who

covers

Jeff

Bezos's

company

Amazon

for

the

paper.

And

here's

the

thing.

Anyone

who

tells

you

that

this

was

all

just

about

the

bottom

line

is

wrong.

That's

not

true.

I

mean,

back

in

2013

when

Jeff

Bezos

bought

the

Washington

Post,

the

purchase

price

was

less

than

1%

of

his

total

net

worth.

Since

then,

his

net

worth

has

skyrocketed

by

about

10

times

from

25

billion

dollars

to

an

estimated

260

billion

dollars.

That's

what

makes

him

the

fourth

richest

man

on

the

planet.

And

just

to

give

you

a

sense

of

how

his

spending

priorities

have

changed.

Just

consider

that

the

price

he

paid

to

acquire

the

Washington

Post

back

then

was

about

half

of

what

he

spent

to

construct

his

big

luxury

superyacht.

Half.

As

the

New

York

Times

Peter

Baker

points

out,

Bezos

would

have

only

had

to

spend

what

he

makes

in

a

single

week,

one

week,

to

keep

the

Washington

Post

paper

operating

as

usual

for

five

more

years.

That's

it.

That's

how

rich

the

guy

is.