You have heard in the past few days that Donald Trump has "banned" the Washington Post from covering his campaign. He has done no such thing. He can do no such thing. The Post can write about Trump's campaign every day, and they have continued to do so. What Trump has done is revoked the press credentials of the Post's reporters who want to attend his campaign events as working media. And had I been Trump after the events of the past few days, I would have done the exact same thing.
Here's why:
In his comments following the Orlando terrorist attack, Trump suggested that President Obama either doesn't understand the nature of the radical Islamist threat against the nation, or perhaps on some level has some sympathy for the position of the radical Islamists. That is hardly a novel theory. Many have advanced it. We have done so here.
The Post reported this with the following headline: "Donald Trump Suggests President Obama Was Involved With Orlando Shooting." That was a flat-out, bold-faced, 100 percent intentional lie. At no point did Trump suggest any such thing, and as soon as he became aware of the headline, Trump denounced the Post for making the claim.
Almost immediately, the Post changed the headline in its online edition to the mealy-mouthed "Donald Trump Seems to Connect President Obama to Orlando Shooting." Even that is an utter fabrication. Trump's statement was certainly harsh, even to the point where he called on Obama to resign for being either unwilling or unable to deal with the threat in a serious way. But suggesting that Obama had something to do with the shooting is not even in the same universe with what Trump said.
So does the punishment fit the crime? Absolutely. Contrary to what you've been hearing, Trump did not revoke the Post's credentials because they've been critical of him. He revoked them because they're just plain making stuff up about him. The media environment being what it is, a headline is written, it gets shared on social media thousands of times - and many people don't even click to read the story. They simply saw on Facebook or Twitter that Trump said Obama was involved in the shooting. And hey! It wasn't just from some nutty fringe web site. It was from the Washington Post!
People think that because the Washington Post is established and supposedly serious, they would certainly not make up complete nonsense and put it in a headline. That's for satire sites like The Onion, or for hyper-partisan morons who will say anything. But if the Post would say it! It must be true!
No. It's not true. No, the Post cannot be trusted. Yes, the Post would just make s*** up. And while Trump's revocation of its press credentials will not stop the Post from reporting on his campaign, it will at least provide the opportunity to call the Post's credibility into question.
We've already told you that the Post is in the tank for Hillary with respect to the e-mail investigation, even going so far as to actively help the Justice Department sabotage the FBI's work. So now we see that in addition to covering up the truth about Hillary's lawbreaking, the Post is also willing to make up total lies about Trump saying completely outrageous things about the president of the United States.
What all this adds up to is that Trump has every reason not to trust the Washington Post. And when you don't trust someone, you don't work with them.
An unwise man once told me you don't pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. That advice was unwise because it fails to understand that the man who owns the barrels of ink is actively at war with you. You can fight back, and you should. The Post will surely respond with even more partisan attacks on Trump, but at least it is now on the public record that the Post has earned its way off the press credential list.
Most of the media will pretend Trump only did this because they covered him unfavorably. That is not true. He did it because they flat-out lied about him, and everyone who forms an opinion about this should know that's why it happened.
You have heard in the past few days that Donald Trump has "banned" the Washington Post from covering his campaign. He has done no such thing. He can do no such thing. The Post can write about Trump's campaign every day, and they have continued to do so. What Trump has done is revoked the press credentials of the Post's reporters who want to attend his campaign events as working media. And had I been Trump after the events of the past few days, I would have done the exact same thing.
Here's why:
