DAN GAINOR: With Iran in the crosshairs, push back on their favorite Trump smear

America has been in the middle of kicking the enemy that has dominated the headlines in the Middle East for nearly 50 years. Naturally, some in the media have targeted… President Donald Trump for the absurd new allegations buried deep in the Epstein files. Why? Because journalists still believe they can drag Trump through the mud, even in the midst of a war, and win the D-party election.

If this sounds familiar, it sure is. This has been the strategy of the media since Trump first decided to campaign as a Republican and destroy the left’s plans for world domination. The media ran with every bogus claim they could find: allegations of Russian collusion, “very peaceful” riots, and claims that Hunter Biden’s laptop was 100% fake. Do you remember this Politico article from Oct. 19, 2020, at the right time to influence the presidential election? “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, multiple intel officials say.”

We now know that the laptop was real and full of scandalous information about President Biden and his family – which is why the truth was buried under a mountain of lies from Trump haters and pro-Trump reporters. They were protecting their boy – the “Big Guy,” of laptop fame. In fact, so much so that he ended up pardoning his son, Hunter Biden before he left office. All 51 Intel executives lost their security clearances, but they did the damage they wanted. And the media – and social media companies – have hidden the truth.

Even the legendary NPR CEO, Katherine Maher, admitted during her testimony that the store blew up in 2020: “I want to say that NPR admits that we made a mistake by failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more and sooner.” Of course, Biden still has the White House, NPR was easily funded, and the GOP was defeated. NPR won the trifecta.

That’s the gist of another Trump scandal claim. Wherever the media went this week, the goal was to put two names in the headlines together: Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. It doesn’t matter if it’s an allegation – old and unsubstantiated, at that. Why bother holding back? All that matters is trying to hurt Trump.

And the printing press was present in all its branches. There are bitter people at NPR, now impoverished because of Trump, who offered this headline: “Justice Department publishes more missing Epstein files related to Trump.” Or Radar Online with a tabloid-style headline: “‘Missing’ Epstein Files Contain Explosive Trump Attack Claim Released by Pam Bondi Hours After Congressional Subpoena.”

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Some of them cannot hide who they are. The left-leaning Daily Beast has several pieces on the story, including this classic: “Trump’s Scary Nicknames Allegedly Used with Epstein Revealed by Accuser.” It included a caption worthy of major sex studies: “EWWWW.” The author of that story, Daily Beast reporter Catherine Bouris, was a major student of American studies, according to her website — and it shows. Consider this quote: “I understand that I feel powerless when faced with the looming specter of patriarchy.”

Or her pro-trans appeal in one of her articles: “Babes In TERFland.” Bouris at least does not pretend to be neutral. From that piece: “I’m not pretending to be an impartial witness, just like I’m impartial when it comes to other forms of racism. I don’t think journalism (whatever I’m doing here) needs to be neutral in the face of oppression and injustice to be successful.”

That’s an important idea as reporters take out their pitchforks and torches for the billionth time, confident that this time they’ll bring down the Orange Man Bad.

One interesting point is how some in the media now fear Trump — or, more likely, his lawyers. Trump has scored two victories at ABC and CBS, since returning to the Oval Office. The two networks have agreed to a multi-million dollar settlement agreement. Now, when outlets cover Trump, they are more cautious. Several chose to use the word “uncorroborated” in their articles – which I’m sure made their lawyers and accountants happy. The Los Angeles Times, CBS News and the Associated Press all fall into that category.

Some news organizations have gone with some form of “alleged,” another safe word preferred by the attorney. That included our friends at CNN, The Guardian and The Hill. MS NOW mobilized its bases for Trump’s “unsubstantiated allegations.” That’s the two-word score in Scrabble — The Legal Edition.

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That kind of institutional CYA (cover your suspicions) shows that this latest batch of stories isn’t even worth the paper it’s printed on.

Back during the heyday of the media actively criticizing the story of the Biden laptop, The Washington Post wrote an opinion arguing that we cannot trust the claims in any way. It was what that group would call denial of denial in the Watergate years. Here’s the headline: “Insisting Hunter Biden’s laptop is fake is a trap. So insisting it’s real.” Schrödinger’s propaganda, for the nerds out there.

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It was the subheading of that op-ed that actually works nearly 10 years later: “The lesson of 2016 is to be more cautious about the possible knowledge of killing corpses in 2020.” That’s what we’re dealing with here, in the middle of a war where our enemies have turned the internet into a battlefield, trying to put our soldiers in harm’s way and bombing us with lies. When thousands of American lives are on the line every second, when the men and women who protect us risk everything to do so. Because President Donald Trump and America are at war with Iran. And the media is fighting Trump.

The late, great President Ronald Reagan often advised us to “trust, but verify.” We should revise that warning to legacy media: “Distrust – they’ve earned it.”

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