Why Trump’s undeniable winning streak is drawing a barrage of negative coverage
Donald Trump has just had the best scarce weeks of his presidency No question No argument Period end of paragraph It began with a bold gamble to send pilots to destroy Iran's nuclear sites Then Trump managed to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Iran TRUMP S ACHIEVEMENTS EMBOLDEN HIM TO BE EVEN MORE AGGRESSIVEMeanwhile as Trump delayed his sky-high tariffs the stock area hit record highs And he won a -million settlement from CBS's parent company in his lawsuit against unfair editing by Minutes That means he has now beaten two of the three broadcast networks having won the same sum from ABC in a suit involving a crucial mistake by George Stephanopoulos And after days of pressure and arm-twisting he managed to pass the Big Beautiful Bill Make no mistake the bill was unfailingly going to pass What were Republicans going to say never mind we just tanked the president's main legislative priority because we didn't like this or that They didn't need Democratic votes under so-called reconciliation And Trump controls the GOP So its members fell into line Now the question is why through this profitable stretch has Trump continued to draw such negative coverage TRUMP SIGNS 'BIG BEAUTIFUL' BILL IN SWEEPING ACCOMPLISHMENT FOR SECOND TERM AGENDA OVERCOMING DEMS AND GOP REBELSFor starters countless in the media just can t stand the guy And this has largely been true since So anything that helps him must be wrong and must be denigrated Even the effective strike on Iran drew only scattered instances of grudging praise when under any other president there would have been standing ovations The press without delay reframed this as a debate over whether the bunker-busting bombs had only set back Iran s nuclear campaign by a insufficient months In fairness that s what the preliminary classified Intel analysis leaked to the press revealed And there s nothing wrong with reporting that accurately even though the assessment was made with low confidence But Trump wants reporters for CNN and the New York Times which broke the story fired over this and with an FBI leak probe under way says he may force journalists to reveal their confidential sources Once the White House could no longer blame anonymous sources there is nothing wrong with quoting a administration record even if if turns out to be wrong The cease-fire between Israel and Iran was fine but that fast morphed into chatter about why Trump couldn t pull off an end to the fighting between Israel and Hamas a far more tough task AFTER SETBACK TO IRAN'S NUCLEAR EFFORT TRUMP EXPECTED TO LEVERAGE MILITARY PATRONAGE IN NETANYAHU MEETINGNot to mention his freezing of weapons shipments to Ukraine when despite his very disappointing call with Vladimir Putin who promptly unleashed the biggest drone and missile attack against Kyiv since the illegal invasion of its sovereign neighbor Perhaps the president is learning what has been obvious to the rest of us Putin has no conceivable interest in peace Everyone had to document the stock area surge though not with the enthusiasm of the earlier plunge and Trump the day before informed that he d hit Japan and South Korea two allies with a percent hike in tariffs But they don t take effect till Aug so this could just be another negotiating tactic There was almost no television coverage of Trump s million settlement with Paramount which is nothing more than the news business protecting its own If this had been any other kind of company with the backstory that someone like Shari Redstone needed administration approval to sell the company and pocket billion the press would have gone haywire Now there s a new twist Fox s Charlie Gasparino writing for the New York Post shared the Paramount settlement includes a side deal between Trump and for the buyer David Ellison son of tech mogul Larry Ellison for him to run to million in advertising supporting causes backed by the president And Trump authenticated it We did a deal for about million plus million or maybe more than that in advertising he informed reporters Paramount denied any knowledge of the side deal SUBSCRIBE TO HOWIE'S MEDIA BUZZMETER PODCAST A RIFF ON THE DAY'S HOTTEST STORIESThe president has also been drawn into a war of words with Elon Musk calling him a train wreck who s gone off the rails in forming a third party and raising the Epstein files again Musk says the lack of an Epstein client list is the final straw he had once apologized for raising it and there s no difference between the Republican and Democratic parties But there was one moment in my view that was a misstep by Trump The president had no need to negotiate with Democrats who strongly opposed a tax cut tilted toward the wealthy while making deep cuts to Medicaid Every Democrat in Congress voted against the Big Beautiful Bill They wouldn t vote only because they hate Trump but I hate them too you know I really do I hate them I cannot stand them because I really believe they hate our country I don t believe the overwhelming majority of Democrats hate their country And that was hardly a unifying message on July weekend Maybe several in the media hate him and he was just counterpunching But he didn t need to go there On the other hand Donald Trump has been getting terrible coverage since and he s clearly grown tired of it
