Fake news: AP claims GOP ‘beginning to worry’ about Trump reelection without QUOTING anyone
(National Sentinel) Narrative: If you believe an Associated Press report published overnight — and you shouldn’t — rank-and-file Republicans are suddenly so worried about POTUS Donald Trump’s ‘legal troubles’ they fear he may not win reelection in 2020.
Under the headline, “Republicans beginning to worry about Trump re-election,” The Associated Press reported:
U.S. President Donald Trump’s intensifying legal troubles are unnerving some of his fellow Republicans. Despite his brash stance, they believe the turmoil has left him increasingly vulnerable as he gears up for what is sure to be a nasty fight for re-election.
Trump, ever confident of his ability to bend story lines to his will, mocks the investigations into his conduct as candidate and president as a “witch hunt” and insists he will survive the threats.
But a shift began to unfold over the weekend after prosecutors in New York for the first time linked Trump to a federal crime of illegal hush payments. That left some of his associates fearful that his customary bravado is unwarranted. For some Republicans, the implication that the president may have directed a campaign finance violation, which would be a felony, could foreshadow a true turning point in the Republican relationship with him when special counsel Robert Mueller releases his report on the Russia investigation.
Does “ever confident of his ability to bend story lines [sic] to his will” sound like objective, unbiased reporting to you?
Beyond that, what evidence does the AP cite as proof of this “unnerving shift?” A quote from Sen. John Thune, R-N.D.
“I’m sure there’s going to be a lot more that’s going to come out from the Southern District (of New York) and from, at some point, from the Mueller investigation as well,” Thune, the chamber’s incoming No. 2 Republican, told the AP on Monday. “What they’re implying there, obviously, is something I assume at some point the president will have an opportunity to respond to.
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Continuing, Thune said, “Campaign finance violations are something that … they are serious matters, but obviously, it depends a little bit on how it gets treated.”
Wow. Does that sound like Republicans en masse are “unnerved” and “shifting” in their support for POTUS Trump?
How about this quote from retiring GOP Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida?
“Remember that the Republicans who are left have won in fairly solid Republican, Trump districts,” she said. “So he is very popular with the base. I would not think that they would want to distance themselves or have any fear of associating with him.”
Panic among the GOP? A “shift?” Is the president really in danger of losing in 2020?
The highlighted quote above is important because it goes to what this story is really about.
The Democrat press, otherwise known as the “mainstream media,” has been unable to get rid of POTUS Trump no matter how hard they’ve tried. The fake news over “Russian collusion” for more than a year didn’t do it. The endless, breathless coverage of special counsel Robert Mueller’s every move and legal filing against former Trump campaign officials and personal lawyer Michael Cohen hasn’t worked. ‘Quotes’ from “anonymous” White House insiders dropping alleged “bombshells” hasn’t worked.
Nothing has worked. So now the Democrat press, at 92 percent negativity covering this president, is banking on the latest scandal-non-scandal: The president is guilty of campaign finance violations for paying hush money to two women seeking to extort him before he was president (and didn’t they sign legally-binding non-disclosure agreements?).
And the AP wants you to believe that — oh no! — now Republicans are set to abandon the president en masse, and without quoting a single one of them to corroborate the headline.
This story and the plethora of similar ones to follow are designed to create a narrative, an illusion, that the president’s congressional support is vanquishing with the express purpose of driving down support among his base. A president with 20-30 percent support is a lot easier to impeach than one with an approval rating in the high 40s or 50 percent, the latter of which POTUS Trump has reached several times since taking office.
But as you can see, the AP story is rife with innuendo and supposition, and conspicuously short on details and corroboration. It’s a story designed to create a story, not report on actual events.
No wonder few Americans trust the Democrat Party’s media apparatus.
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