As I posted last night, if the rally held by President Trump at Grand Rapids yesterday (see President Trump Gives The Democrats A Preview Of The Next 5 Years During His Grand Rapids Rally) is a preview of his campaign strategy, it makes a lot of sense.

In it he calls out the Democrats for “defrauding the public with ridiculous bullsh**.”

As it turns out, the media are afraid that they, too, will be targets. Perhaps a warm-up, four days ago the Trump reelection issued a memo to cable and network news producers:

Trump’s re-election campaign sent a memo to television producers on Monday instructing them to “employ basic journalistic standards when booking” six current or former government officials that the campaign said “made outlandish, false claims, without evidence” while on air.

The memo names:

• Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.
• Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., the chair of the House Judiciary Committee
• Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez
• John Brennan, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency
• Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chair of the House Intelligence Committee
• Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., who has floated a potential bid for president

No one thinks that they will do that but what is certain is that this memo will be an item of discussion and it lets the networks know pretty directly that if they invite one of these assclowns on to pontificate without some kind of balance, there will be consequences.

Then The Atlantic had this story: Inside Trump’s Strategy to Use Mueller on the Campaign Trail. Apparently, a lot of weak sisters in the GOP want Trump to take Karl Rove’s advice (see President Trump, Please Don’t Let Karl Rove Give You the Same Sh***y Advice He Gave President Bush) and just drop the politically motivated Star Chamber he was forced to endure for over 670 days. Trump’s team, wisely, thinks differently:

Trump allies see Barr’s letter as a kind of Swiss Army knife—a tool useful in all kinds of situations. Not only is it exculpatory, they say, but it also implicitly rebukes the press for its coverage of the Russia investigation, inoculating Trump from any future scandal that reporters might unearth. According to a source familiar with internal discussions at the Republican National Committee and the pro-Trump super PAC America First, both organizations are “geared up for any nonsense to come.”

They’re already prepared to attack reporters. “Any reporter who tries that will be hit with 30-second spots of all their ridiculous claims about collusion,” said the source, who, like others interviewed for this story, requested anonymity to describe private conversations. “Their tweets have all been screencapped. It’s all ready to go.” (“It’s the same thing we’ve been doing the last two years. We’re going to hold the media accountable when we see fit,” an RNC official clarified, adding that this would include digital clips shared on social media.)

This is one of those tactics that can’t really go wrong. Virtually no one in the country trusts the media and fewer still like them. President Trump’s approval ratings may be stuck in the 40s, but to get to the 40s, the media would have to use the space shuttle.

President Trump commands a larger Twitter following than the audiences most reporters reach. If the campaign and the RNC decided to unload on one of these feckless goobers…let’s say Chris Cillizza or Tater…they will be put in the center of a media hurricane the likes of which they’ve never experienced.

I know there will be bleating about the freedom of the press from The Bulwark and, well, you can guess who else, but after the shameless and shameful conduct of the press, particularly CNN, and NBC’s Ken Delanian and Manu Raju, and a battalion of others, they stopped being non-combatants and assumed the role of a wing of the Democrat party. Shaming these people; making them eat their own words; making them consider carefully their next words; have become, to me, completely legitimate tactics.

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