In a pair of recent interviews, former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), spoke for millions when they showed utter contempt for two legacy media hosts drunk on their own arrogance.
First was Vance, who continued his media tour-de-force on Sunday with an appearance on ABC’s This Week. Host Martha Raddatz, a longtime Democratic partisan, attempted to push back on Vance’s assertion that the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang had taken over apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado.
“The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes — apartment complexes, and the mayor said, ‘Our dedicated police officers have acted on those concerns,’” Raddatz said to Vance as she tried to defend the absurd fact that apartment complexes in Aurora had in fact been taken over by the gang.
An incredulous Vance gave the only possible response that is warranted when a person says that only a handful of apartment complexes in the United States of America, where hundreds and possibly thousands of people live, have been taken over by an international gang.
Raddatz: “The incidents were limited to a handful of apartment complexes… A handful!”@JDVance: “Do you hear yourself? Only a handful of apartment complexes were taken over by Venezuelan gangs and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris’ open border?”
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 13, 2024
“Martha, do you hear yourself? Only ‘a handful of apartment complexes’ in America were taken over by Venezuelan gangs, and Donald Trump is the problem and not Kamala Harris’ open border?” Vance replied. “Americans are so fed up with what’s going on and they have every right to be and I really find this exchange, Martha, sort of interesting, because you seem to be more focused [on] nitpicking everything that Donald Trump has said rather than acknowledging that apartment complexes in the United States of America are being taken over by violent gangs.”
When Raddatz again tried to downplay the issue, Vance sarcastically remarked, “A few apartment complexes, no big deal,” at which point she changed the subject.
Not one to be outshined by the running mate he picked, Trump delivered his own dose of contempt for the legacy media when he sat down for an interview Tuesday with Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait at the Economic Club in Chicago.
On two separate occasions, Trump told Micklethwait to his face that he was wrong “about everything.”
“What does the Wall Street Journal know? They’ve been wrong about everything,” Trump said. “So have you, by the way. You’ve been wrong your whole life.”
And then later in the interview, while discussing tariff policy, Micklethwait said that Trump’s proposed tariffs on foreign goods would have “have a serious effect on the overall economy.”
“It’s going to have a massive effect… it’s going to be a positive effect,” the former president replied. “It must be hard for you to spend 25 years talking about tariffs as being negative and then have somebody explain to you that you’re totally wrong.”
While Republican contempt for the legacy media is nothing new, both Trump and Vance showed that it is one thing to decry the legacy media to your own supporters, but it is an entirely different matter to show that contempt while interacting with the media.
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Micklethwait offered no substantive response to Trump’s assertion that he was “totally wrong,” and Raddatz didn’t even bother addressing Vance’s righteous indignation at her callous assertion that the gang takeover was “limited to a handful of apartment buildings.”
In the face of people intent on dishonest framing that supports their own worldview, both Trump and Vance gave the only reasonable responses: a righteous contempt of the legacy media that speaks for the millions of voters.