Trump Team Is Mad CNN Won’t Give Credit (Already Did) for Trump Hurricane Relief Donation (He Hasn’t Made Yet)

I’m not saying that Donald Trump is going to pledge a $1 million Hurricane Harvey relief donation and then not do it. His personal track record with donations is pretty bad, but the intense media scrutiny of being president at least held him to donating his salary as promised (so far), so the same will probably happen here. What I am saying is that his team is already using it as blatantly false propaganda.

That’s all Donald Trump knows how to do. For him, saying he’s going to do something and receiving media coverage for it is as good as actually doing the thing, because he only cares about himself, and his success or failure rides entirely on media attention. It’s paid off for him, as making bold claims that he can’t back up carried him into the White House, so I can understand why he’d just go ahead and keep doing it.

But he might want to do a better job of it as his approval rating sinks to its lowest point ever, according to Gallop. After CNN posted an article reporting on Trump’s plans to donate to Hurricane Harvey relief efforts—yes, after—Eric Trump took to the family communication platform (Twitter) to wonder if CNN would cover Trump’s donation.

I will note again, here, that Trump has pledged to donate but has not actually donated yet. I’m pretty sure he actually will this time, but this is not a person you give credit for doing something until you’re 100% sure he’s actually done it. (His Art of the Deal co-author still thinks he won’t do it.) He had Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders ask the assembled reporters in the White House briefing room for suggestions of where to donate his money, which was a similar tactic to how questions about his salary donations were handled.

She said, “He actually asked that I check with the folks in this room since you are very good at research and have been doing a lot of reporting into the groups and organizations that are best and most effective in helping and providing aid, and he’d like some suggestions from the folks here and I’d be happy to take those.” It should go without saying that the president doesn’t need the press’s advice on where to donate, and posing the question to them is a transparent effort to make sure they can’t criticize where the money ends up.

While all that’s still in the works, none other than former Trump administration official Sebastian Gorka also took to Twitter to boost Eric Trump’s dig at CNN and paint the media as dishonest, despite the fact that they’re the ones being very obviously dishonest:

Eric Trump suggested CNN wouldn’t cover Trump’s donation an hr after CNN covered it. Gorka decided to one-up him by piling on 12hrs later pic.twitter.com/NLjBfH0nN4

— Robert Maguire (@RobertMaguire_) September 1, 2017

Just another Friday afternoon in a world where the liars no longer even care how obviously wrong they are, because they can just freely create an alternate reality. To be honest, I’d love to escape to an alternate reality at this point, too.

(image: Ildar vector / Shutterstock.com)

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