Down In The Polls, Trump Seeks Familiar Embrace of Conservative Media

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Supporters of President Trump watch a video featuring Fox News host Sean Hannity ahead of Trump’s arrival for a campaign rally Friday in Waterford Township, Mich.

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When Trump sees insufficient loyalty, he or his associates snark back. Last week, his spokesman trashed Fox News’ respected polling unit for its findings that voters were turning against him in previously supporting states. And the spokesman did so on Fox News. Host Harris Faulkner didn’t put up much of a defense. Trump has denounced Fox’s Chris Wallace, perhaps its most straight-ahead news host, and tweeted twice against the network after it broadcast remarks by former President Barack Obama live, mocking him.

That night, Fox News’ chief political anchor, Bret Baier, reminded listeners and the president that the network had just carried Trump’s rally live for the better part of an hour. And yet at a rally Monday in Fayetteville, N.C., Trump lionized a laundry list of seven Fox hosts, hailing each for the crowd.

His non-Fox News interviews have been largely granted to media outlets or figures who have equally sympathetic records: Marc Thiessen, The Washington Post’s most pro-Trump columnist; Debra J. Saunders, a conservative political writer for the Las Vegas Review Journal, which is owned by casino titan Sheldon Adelson, one of the Republican Party’s biggest benefactors; Sinclair, which Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, boasted had agreed to give Trump better coverage in exchange for greater access. (Sinclair denies this, but has run numerous pro-Trump commentaries and pushed Trump’s shaky boasts on handling the pandemic and allegations of corruption by the Bidens.)

Among the others is Newsmax’s Greg Kelly — a former Fox star and son of a former New York City police commissioner well known by Trump — on an outlet founded by Trump’s friend Christopher Ruddy. And then there’s Trump’s friend and ally Rush Limbaugh.

When Trump contracted COVID-19, he couldn’t stage rallies under public health rules. Columbia University historian Nicole Hemmer, who studies conservative media, noted that Limbaugh mused aloud on how he could help Trump by turning over his microphone to the president to do what he called a virtual rally.

«This, sir, is a mega-MAGA rally and we are all thrilled to be with you today, we are so glad you’re doing better, Limbaugh said while introducing the president. Trump replied, «Well, I want to thank you, Rush, you’re a fantastic man, a friend of mine. Before I knew you as a friend, you were a supporter.

Limbaugh almost never invites big-name guests on his show, arguing he’s the expert. That conversation with Trump lasted two hours. And on a subsequent show, the top-rated radio host devoted another show to listening to Trump at an actual rally.

«It gives you a sense of how all-in both the president and Limbaugh are in the 2020 election, Hemmer said.

It’s not just Trump and Limbaugh, but the president and the conservative media.

You can also see a game plan emerge for what would transpire if Trump were to lose: Conservative outlets would spend a lot of time on Trump’s near-every utterance, and devote a lot of time to attacking Biden and his administration.