Article in Politico by Michael Kruse, 4/18/25
Headline: ” Trump’s Most Important Relationship Is Ending. And the Break-Up Isn’t Pretty.”
Subhead: “For a half-century Trump and the mainstream media have mutually benefited from a stormy symbiosis. Why is he trying to kill the institution that made him?”
“. . .“I’m thinking seriously of running for president,” Trump said. “Why aren’t you writing about me?”
“ ‘He knew that you couldn’t be a serious presidential candidate in this country at that time unless your name showed up in every newspaper in the country,’ Fournier told me. ‘And if the AP wrote about you, that’s what would happen,’ he said.
“Trump used to court the AP. Today he’s in court with the AP — key members of Trump’s administration are defendants in a lawsuit filed by the flagship wire service after he booted its reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One for not following his order to call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. . .”
Because his relationship with the media is his most important relationship. More than his three wives — more than any business partners — Trump’s symbiotic relationship with the media helped him craft an identity that has fueled every other achievement.
No longer. In the wake of his election last fall and at the outset of his second presidential term, Trump has turned his performative anti-media schtick into actual anti-media deeds. Wielding lawsuits, executive actions and the unleashing of allies and aides, he’s attempting to starve, squelch or shutter network television stations, global news agencies and reporters in Washington and beyond — a roster of targets ranging from ABC to CBS to NPR to the publication you’re reading right now. . .”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/04/18/trump-media-history-ap-apprentice-00271192
