President Donald Trump wants to boost domestic manufacturing, but one sector has already massively increased output — of bogus news stories by hostile and biased media.
High productivity of superficial, misleading, and hostile “news” has always characterized Trump’s 10 years in politics. But it’s worth examining afresh because the 2024 election briefly encouraged hope that media shock might stop the news rot.
“Resistance” news outlets might have noted widespread revulsion at their maxim, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a story,” and repented. But after a couple of months’ dismay that people prefer Republicans to run Washington, quiescent news organizations have rededicated themselves to “enterprise” stories — spinning thin and speculative yarns rather than telling people what’s happening.
When Trump appeared on NBC News’s Meet the Press with Kristen Welker, the big story was him responding, “I don’t know,” after Welker asked, “Don’t you need to uphold the Constitution?”
This was amid discussion of illegal immigrants’ due process rights. Trump noted the difficulty of giving millions of illegal migrants court hearings, which would be used to stall their deportation — “a million or 2 million or 3 million trials.” It would take centuries, and Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama weren’t similarly hobbled. Trump told Welker he’d rely on White House lawyers to interpret Supreme Court rulings.
Welker: “Your secretary of state says everyone who’s here, citizens and noncitizens, deserve due process. Do you agree, Mr. President?”
Trump: “I don’t know, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know. … I was elected to get them the hell out of here, and the courts are holding me from doing it.”
Welker: “But even given those numbers that you’re talking about, don’t you need to uphold the Constitution …”
Trump: “I don’t know. I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers … and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said. What you said is not what I heard the Supreme Court said. They have a different interpretation.”
So Trump would follow Supreme Court rulings — i.e., uphold the Constitution — but his lawyers don’t think the court agrees with Welker’s implication that this means illegal immigrants get millions of trials. In short, there is debate about what process is their due.
A news outlet seeking to inform viewers rather than generate gasps of disbelief might follow up, “Mr. President, to be clear, are you saying you don’t know if due process requires court hearings for each illegal immigrant, or that you don’t know if you should uphold the Constitution?”
That was never going to happen. Instead, NBC and Welker thought, “Gotcha!” and ignited days of outrage from those who make a living being outraged over Trump, accusing him of not respecting and planning to break the Constitution.
TROUBLE AT THE NORTHERN BORDER
The response of the ineffable Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was typical. He commented on X that our “un-American” president “admitted” he didn’t know if he should uphold the Constitution. No, no, he really didn’t.
Trump invites this sort of disingenuousness sometimes by deliberately goading the Left, sometimes by speaking without lawyerly precision and care despite knowing their malevolence and cynicism. But the news media also have a responsibility to find out what is true rather than feed their appetite to be baited. They want what stirs people up, not what is real.
This article was originally published at www.washingtonexaminer.com
