Donald Trump wants to hear just two words about the chieftains of NBC and CNN, Andy Lack (left) and Jeff Zucker (right): “You’re fired!”
That was the essence of the love letter Trump left the two media titans on Twitter, continuing his somewhat contentious affair with the media and its fabulously wealthy and dead-left celebrity stars and executives.
And again, as is his wont, Trump’s mash note landed in the wee hours. So the media’s soyboys hadn’t something nice to wake up to.
Lack(y)’s and Little Jeff Z’s Terrible Job
Once again, Trump left little doubt about his feelings in tweets at 3:50 a.m. and 4:02 a.m.:
The hatred and extreme bias of me by @CNN has clouded their thinking and made them unable to function. But actually, as I have always said, this has been going on for a long time. Little Jeff Z has done a terrible job, his ratings suck, & AT&T should fire him to save credibility!
What’s going on at @CNN is happening, to different degrees, at other networks — with @NBCNews being the worst. The good news is that Andy Lack(y) is about to be fired(?) for incompetence, and much worse. When Lester Holt got caught fudging my tape on Russia, they were hurt badly!
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Trump’s shot at Holt, NBC’s baritone voice of gravitas, refers to the correspondent’s interview with Trump in May. Discussing his decision to fire FBI chief James Comey, Trump said, “Knowing there was no good time to [fire Comey], and in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself … ‘You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should’ve won.’ And the reason they should have won it is the Electoral College is almost impossible for a Republican to win. It’s very hard…. So everybody was thinking they should’ve won the election. [The Russia probe] was an excuse for having lost the election.”
Of course, Little Jeff Z’s and Andy Lack(y)’s and Holt’s bosom buddies were none too happy about the president’s opinion, and so the obligatory Trump Derangement seizure followed.
But just to ensure the media got the message, the president followed up minutes later with this assessment:
I just cannot state strongly enough how totally dishonest much of the Media is. Truth doesn’t matter to them, they only have their hatred & agenda. This includes fake books, which come out about me all the time, always anonymous sources, and are pure fiction. Enemy of the People!
Google Tweets
This is the week’s second wee-hours bombing run over media territory.
On Wednesday, Trump tweeted that Google is anti-Trump, as The New American reported, accusing the tech behemoth of censoring conservative search results:
Google search results for “Trump News” shows only the viewing/reporting of Fake News Media. In other words, they have it RIGGED, for me & others, so that almost all stories & news is BAD. Fake CNN is prominent. Republican/Conservative & Fair Media is shut out. Illegal? 96% of results on “Trump News” are from National Left-Wing Media, very dangerous. Google & others are suppressing voices of Conservatives and hiding information and news that is good. They are controlling what we can & cannot see. This is a very serious situation — will be addressed!
Trump’s economic czar, Lawrence Kudlow, suggested that Google might the target of regulation if it doesn’t change. “We’re taking a look at it,” he said. Uh-oh.
The administration’s concern is Google’s near-total control of the search-engine market.
Statcounter shows that Google’s frightening SkyNet-like servers return 90.46 percent of all results on the Internet. Bing has 3.13 percent of the market, and Yahoo 2.12 percent.
So Google has unprecedented control of a major information highway that could affect what people see when they search for news. What Google wants you to see is what you’re going to get, and much the same is true of the social-media giants, whose censorship of conservatives has invited a farrago of angry criticism from Trump, his supporters, and even Never Trumpers.
The Washington Post provided a helpful list of four ways for Trump to rein in Google and dial back its power: congressionally approved regulation, federal agency probes, attacks from the bully pulpit, and urging third-party lawsuits.
Photo of Andrew Lack: NBCUniversal; photo of Jeff Zucker: David Shankbone
