\n<\/p>\n
Projection has long been Donald Trump<\/strong>\u2019s superpower. Since the start of his presidential run in 2015, the former president has relentlessly attacked the mainstream media, often calling it the \u201cLamestream Media\u201d or quite simply \u201cFake News.\u201d I always assumed this name-calling was part and parcel of Trump\u2019s autocratic playbook, but after watching the first few days of Trump\u2019s trial, it\u2019s grown increasingly clear that this rhetoric is actually less applicable to the media and more applicable to himself.<\/p>\n Right now, in a Manhattan courtroom, we are hearing the stories of how Trump worked hand in hand with David Pecker,<\/strong> the former publisher of the National Enquirer,<\/em> to turn the trashy tabloid magazine into a propaganda machine. Trump\u2019s first and (very likely only) preelection criminal trial focuses on how Trump and his friend, Pecker, killed stories about Trump\u2019s alleged affairs by using cash payments to buy the silence of Trump\u2019s alleged paramours\u2014a practice called \u201ccatch and kill.\u201d In essence, stories were purchased so they\u2019d never run.<\/p>\n If there is anything \u201clame\u201d or \u201cfake\u201d about the news media, it\u2019s practices like these, which no editor or reporter of good standing would ever consider using, or that political figures would expect, as MSNBC host and White House veteran Jen Psaki<\/strong> pointed<\/a> out this week. \u201cFeels crazy this may need to be said,\u201d noted Psaki, but \u201ccampaign and White House comms staff do not work with media to pay off potential sources of bad stories\u2026ever.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet, catch and kill was just one<\/em> part of the Enquirer<\/em>\u2019s skullduggery: Pecker also produced outlandish news stories about Trump\u2019s political opponents, like Ted Cruz<\/strong> (\u201cTed Cruz\u2019s Father\u2014Caught With JFK Assassin\u201d), Ben Carson<\/strong> (\u201cBungling Surgeon Ben Carson Left Sponge in Patient\u2019s Brain\u201d), and Marco Rubio<\/strong> (\u201c\u2018Family Man\u2019 Marco Rubio\u2019s Love Child Stunner!\u201d). Later, after Trump won the primary, the magazine turned<\/a> its attention to his 2016 general competitor, Hillary Clinton,<\/strong> by putting her on the magazine\u2019s cover and filling it with negative headlines that painted her as everything from \u201ccorrupt\u201d to \u201cracist\u201d at least 15 times in the five-month run-up to November, according to the Guardian.<\/em> Headlines like these saturated the checkout aisles in grocery stores, delis, and big-box retailers, serving as mini billboards that gave an impression that candidates committed similar ethical lapses\u2014a tactic Steve Bannon<\/strong> proudly coined<\/a> as \u201cflood[ing] the zone with shit.\u201d<\/p>\n It was throughout this period that the magazine essentially became \u201cthe ground zero of fake news,\u201d Lachlan Cartwright,<\/strong> who at the time served as the executive editor, would go on to say. In other words, the fake news media did<\/em> exist, but it was populated by lie-laden stories that were cooked up by characters like Michael Cohen<\/strong>\u2014and not, say, The<\/em> New York Times<\/em> or The Washington Post.<\/em> As Pecker himself explained<\/a> in court, \u201cMichael Cohen would call me and say, \u2018We would like for you to write a negative article on\u2026let\u2019s say, for the sake of argument, Ted Cruz\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth reiterating once more that Pecker and Trump\u2019s alliance\u2014which the former called \u201can agreement among friends\u201d\u2014is something that absolutely no journalist with any ethical integrity would agree to. And therein lies the barefaced hypocrisy of the former president, who, for example, accused<\/a> the media of an anti-Trump \u201cconspiracy\u201d during COVID; of unfavorably altering<\/a> photos of then first lady Melania Trump<\/strong> ahead of the 2020 election; and of aiding<\/a> Clinton with biased coverage (despite the media\u2019s notorious<\/a> role in blowing the nothing burger<\/a> of her \u201cemails\u201d way out of proportion). As the adage goes<\/a>, when it comes to Republicans, every accusation is a confession.<\/p>\n Trump wasn\u2019t the only<\/a> \u201cFOP\u201d or \u201cFriend of Pecker\u201d who got the special Enquirer<\/em> catch-and-kill treatment. In court Pecker also testified about killing unfavorable stories for Arnold Schwarzenegger<\/strong> and Ari Emanuel<\/strong>, about the Hollywood agent\u2019s brother, Rahm Emanuel<\/strong>, and his client, Mark Wahlberg.<\/strong> (Representatives for Ari Emanuel and Wahlberg could not be reached for comment by the Times<\/em><\/a>,<\/em> while a representative for Rahm Emanual declined to comment.)<\/p>\n This is all to say that Trump was given the same back-scratching, image-padding privileges of showbiz, as though he were a movie star and not<\/em> a presidential candidate whose policies would have a direct impact on millions of Americans. The privileges were, as the Times<\/em> reports, simply part of Pecker\u2019s \u201cstandard operating procedure,\u201d which he just about owned up to<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n