Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told thrilled supporters gathered at a New Hampshire rally that the traveling press was late to his rally and he refused to hold off on speaking until they arrived.
“I have really good news for you. I just heard the press is stuck on their airplane. They can’t get here,” Trump said as the crowd erupted in cheers. “I love it. So they’re trying to get here now. They’re going to be about 30 minutes late. They called us and said could you wait? I said absolutely not. Let’s get going, New Hampshire.”
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After taping an interview on “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” Thursday afternoon, Trump flew out of New York, while pool reporters were left behind in Manhattan traffic, leaving on their press plane from New Jersey.
Upset, some of the traveling press tried to “boycott” the rally by refusing to cover it, but network management told them that wasn’t an option. Some took to Twitter to rail against the GOP nominee for leaving them behind.
Members of the leftist press also vented their feelings to Politico, complaining about their “awful” demonization at the hands of Trump and voters:
“This is completely ridiculous and unacceptable. This has gone on for way to [sic] long and it’s time we take a stand,” said one member of the traveling press.
“The press corps is at a boiling point here and was more frustrated tonight than ever,” said another.
“There’s the want to do something among traveling press of course — being constantly mocked and demonized is awful — but there’s the competing feeling that news organizations have almost let too much slide to have any bargaining power at this point,” said a third member of Trump’s traveling press corps.
Media organizations “pay extra to travel on the campaign-arranged press planes and buses, with the distinct purpose of making sure they arrive on time and with the candidate to events,” Politico notes.
Needling the press is a crowd favorite at Trump rallies. The establishment press have endlessly attacked Trump and his supporters as racist, sexist, Islamaphobic, a demagogue, Hitler, subconsciously Hitler, not Hitler but Mussolini, with once-respectable conservative sites helpfully adding his working class white supporters “deserve to die,” and “deserve to be beaten.” They celebrate the countless death threats made at Trump, give generous airtime to those who make attempts on his life, calling one would-be murder in one instance “a good guy with a gun.” Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton piled on, calling one half of Trump supporters “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it,” who belong in what she calls “the basket of deplorables.” Such Americans are “irredeemable” and “not America,” she added. The press immediately doubled down on Clinton’s smear.
Many Americans’ trust in the media stands at an all-time low. Gallup reports trust levels have hit their lowest since the polling company began tracking Americans’ attitudes towards the press since 1997, with only 32 percent saying they have a “great deal” or “fair” amount of trust in the media.