{"id":44595,"date":"2020-03-29T13:54:20","date_gmt":"2020-03-29T20:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=44595"},"modified":"2020-04-10T12:03:53","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T19:03:53","slug":"wtf-while-americans-suffer-trump-brags-and-lies-about-tv-ratings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=44595","title":{"rendered":"WTF? While Americans Suffer, Trump Brags (and Lies) About TV ‘Ratings’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, it had to come to this. With more than 132,000 cases of COVID-19 (coronavirus) confirmed in the United States, and 2,300 plus deaths, Donald Trump is showing us what really matters to him. He isn’t expressing condolences to those who have lost loved ones. He isn’t implementing a coherent strategy for combating the pandemic. He isn’t even adhering to the social distancing orders his own task force is recommending.<\/p>\n

\"Donald
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Nope. What matters to Trump now – and always – is his ratings. Trump’s ego is voracious. Throughout this ordeal he has spent more time paying tribute to himself than he has executing a national plan. Whenever he does address things his administration is doing, he prefaces those remarks with superlatives that applaud his actions as “the biggest,” “the most,”<\/em> and “the best ever.”<\/em> He simply cannot describe any effort on his part without asserting that it broke some imaginary record for fabulousness.<\/p>\n

On Sunday morning Trump went even further to essentially admit that he’s exploiting this pandemic as a means to get free airtime to promote himself and his 2020 reelection campaign. In a flurry of frantic tweets, Trump shamelessly boasted about the ratings for the televised Coronavirus Task Force briefings. He began with a typical swipe at the media that he despises saying that<\/a><\/strong> “The Lamestream Media wants us to fail. That will NEVER happen!”<\/em> And that<\/a><\/strong> “Polls are showing tremendous disapproval of Lamestream Media coverage of the Virus crisis. The Fake News just hasn\u2019t figured that out yet!”<\/em><\/p>\n

Trump’s assertion that the media (which he is now maligning as “lamestream”<\/em> ala Sarah Palin) “wants us to fail”<\/em> is not supported by reality. And Trump, as usual, doesn’t provide a single example to prove that reckless claim. Reporting accurately that Trump’s response is failing is not the same as wanting it to fail. As for polls on the public’s approval of coverage of the pandemic, they predominantly show that the majority of Americans don’t trust Trump<\/a><\/strong> on the subject of the virus. Even worse for Trump’s fragile ego, Americans trust the media more than they trust Trump<\/a><\/strong>. And then there was this:<\/p>\n

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Because the \u201cRatings\u201d of my News Conferences etc. are so high, \u201cBachelor finale, Monday Night Football type numbers\u201d according to the @nytimes<\/a>, the Lamestream Media is going CRAZY. \u201cTrump is reaching too many people, we must stop him.\u201d said one lunatic. See you at 5:00 P.M.!<\/p>\n

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n