I think most of the outlets are turning on Trump, actually, now that we're facing the general. The attention has gotten much more focused and critical, as the Beltway has begun to realize this is really dangerous and they have to cut the [!@#$%^&*]. That's what got us the various pieces from NBC and the print journalists in the last few weeks that have just torn Trump up about his business dealings. Last week MSNBC cut away from Trump's rambling pressers to go to Hillary. I've never seen that happen before, and it is a sea change that means something.

 

They still want a horse race narrative, of course; they always do. But it's most embodied by disgusting entrenched hack Mark Halperin, who wrote a great dishy book (Game Change) with his buddy John Heilemann but is still the conservative sympathizer who called Obama "kind of a dick" on live TV.

 

Halperin and Heilemann have a docuseries, The Circus, premiering on Showtime shortly following all the candidates around this year, but that's not the story here. The story is how closely Halperin seems to have become personally attached to Donald Trump after following him on the trail over the last year, a la the rest of the press' long love affair with John McCain - there's a ton of cozy photos of them together, and he has a long track record of defending Trump's many foibles in the face of incredulity from even the Morning Joe crew, like the time a while back when he insisted Trump could take California and then when he claimed Trump's comments about Mexicans weren't racist. Or the time he all but did a direct address to the camera begging Trump to tone it down, promising the media could side with him against Clinton if only he weren't so mean to them.

 

Anyway: Halperin got roasted the other day for his latest in a series of 'what if?' tweets trying to create a narrative for Trump to become the nation's hero. Here's the glorious deets. Enjoy. The good news is, Halperin's the only one out there stumping in the mainstream. The rest of the media doesn't seem to be trying too hard for the horse race here, possibly because they (like me) suspect Trump will not be the candidate after all.

 

Unrelated: Mediaite noticed this, which I didn't - buried in a piece comparing Trump to Romney's troubles, the NYT again hints Trump is too broke to campaign.

Edited June 21, 20169 yr by Vee

But wait! There's more!

 

Also: Rolling Stone has a remarkably candid piece opining why the media has, as I discussed above, finally started unloading on Trump.

Edited June 20, 20169 yr by Vee

Trumptastrophe!

Halperin has always struggled to hide his right-leaning tendencies. He used to run a site for ABC called The Note that extolled the virtues of Rove-era Republicans and their genius strategies, while pushing the "Democrats in disarray" narrative at the same time. I'm surprised he's into Trump, but then, a lot of people in the Beltway seem to have gotten into that starfucker type of mindset.

 

Anyway, here's an example of the type of blatant hate that Trump followers give on the local level - encouraging hatred and bile against a church just for having a message about Ramadan.

 

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/matt-jansen-chris-rodkey-blessed-ramadan

More on Trump's firing of Lewandowski - likely leaked from the campaign, but it's still a minute by minute.

Broke as a joke.

 

Trump's campaign made less money last month than Hamilton ticket sales and the Veronica Mars kickstarter.

#TrumpSoPoor

#TrumpSoPoor

Sara Bibel ‏@deepsoap 2h2 hours ago Los Angeles, CA

#TrumpSoPoor Rick Scott & Scott Walker want him to pee in a cup to prove he's not on drugs

A slightly more detailed look into Trump's cash-strapped campaign.

 

Donald Trump Starts Summer Push With Crippling Money Deficit

 

An in-depth piece on Reince Priebus and the RNC's ongoing struggles to domesticate Trump.

 

This Rubio bit is hilarious:

 

I tried Rubio, who has undergone more public agony than perhaps anyone about Trump. Rubio looks nauseated whenever someone asks him about the man he called “the most vulgar person to ever aspire to the presidency” but who later said he would be “honored” to speak for at the Republican convention before clarifying that if he did speak, he would only “speak about things I believe in, not somebody else’s platform.” Rubio also holds the astonishing position of saying he’ll vote for someone he has previously declared unfit to hold the American nuclear codes. You envision him under a mushroom cloud, assuring his kids that it could be even worse — at least he didn’t vote for Clinton.

 

There’s a palpable weariness among Republicans, and it’s still only June. Every day, it’s something else. “What it does is suck all the oxygen out of the chamber,” Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, told me. “I’m trying to do my job as a senator, which does not end because we have a contentious and bizarre presidential candidate.”

Edited June 21, 20169 yr by Vee

Why does this NOT shock me, UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

 

It Gets Better: The media is unraveling the mystery of Trump's paid advertisers, "Draper Sterling" (yes, from Mad Men).

While struggling to raise cash, Trump is being turned away by prospects for new staff, who fear career damage.

The rare 'Opposite Trump' is out in force right now doing his get Hillary speech live - he's telepromptered up the wazoo, completely on-book and just using GOP boilerplate lines, not his own. It always sounds very fake and the antithesis of himself (and his appeal to his base), but I suspect it will reenergize the horse race narrative briefly and people will once again claim Trump has finally pivoted to the GE. That said, he's also still lying incessantly.

 

I think the hope for 'New Trump' will last maybe 12 hours. He'll do something else insane by Friday at the latest, this is how he always works. One mediocre speech makes the media think he's finally changed, then he goes ape again. It happened most recently a week or two ago.

Edited June 22, 20169 yr by Vee

Recently resigned Trump aide Michael Caputo, who publicly cheered the firing of Corey Lewandowski, dishes on the campaign.