It was a revealing moment for Donald Trump.
"When I say ‘the enemy from within,’ the other side goes crazy," he said Sunday.
He’s right about that. I raised the subject in our Trump Tower interview last weekend, saying that phrase seemed ominous, and his response – that Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff are indeed enemies, not just opponents, was picked up across the media universe.
But driving the other side nuts is a Trump specialty. When he told the rally at Madison Square Garden that the media are "the real enemy, the enemy of the people," there were loud cheers from a party that already despises and distrusts the press.
A slight digression: The argument that Trump shouldn’t have been at the Garden because the Nazis held a rally there in 1939 is ludicrous. FDR held an event there two years later, and the Democrats have held nominating conventions there. It’s the place where I’ve watched many Knicks games and a George Harrison concert. And Billy Joel has been selling out the arena for years.)
Trump knows how to rile up the media, rekindling the debate over whether they must cover his more over-the-top rhetoric or are just normalizing him.
In our Mar-a-Lago interview a few months ago, the former president acknowledged to me that at times he deliberately uses incendiary language to drive news coverage. Remember, even negative coverage helps him dominate the headlines.
And if you think media companies aren’t intimidated by him, look at the disingenuous decisions by Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos and Los Angeles Times owner Patrrick Soon-Shiong to kill Kamala Harris endorsements in favor of a no-endorsement stance that obviously helps Trump. Two columnists, including Michelle Norris, have resigned from the Post, three top editors have quit the Times, and thousands of subscriptions have been canceled at both papers.
Trump’s speech at the Garden was almost completely overshadowed by what came before it. A comedian, Tony Hinchcliffe, called Puerto Rico "a floating pile of garbage." He joked about Jewish people being cheap, and he and a Black buddy folks "carving watermelons."
"These Latinos, they love making babies, too. Just know that they do," Hinchcliffe said. "There’s no pulling out. They don’t do that. They come inside, just like they did to our country."
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It reached the point that Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said on Fox yesterday morning: "Look, it was a comedian who made a joke in poor taste. Obviously, that joke does not reflect the views of President Trump or our campaign."
The Trump camp soon put out word that it hadn’t vetted what Hinchcliffe was going to say. That, if true, was a big mistake.
But it wasn’t just the comedian. Conservative New York radio host Sid Rosenberg told the rally about "f****** illegals, and also called Hillary Clinton a "sick son of a bitch" and a "Jew hater." A friend of Trump called Kamala Harris "the anti-Christ."
Now Trump didn’t say any of this, but made no attempt to distance himself by saying, for instance, that he didn’t agree with everything that had been said.
A New York Times news story was headlined "Trump at the Garden: A Closing Carnival of Grievances, Misogyny and Racism."
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And that gave Kamala Harris an opening. She said the rally "highlighted a point I’ve been making…He is focused and actually fixated on his grievances, and himself and on dividing our country."
Meanwhile, Trump scored an absolute coup with a three-hour sitdown with Joe Rogan.
Sure, he rambled at times, talking about whales and extraterrestrial aliens. But the podcast racked up 33 million views, with an audience of mostly men, and mainly young men. That’s far more than a candidate would reach going on several top-rated cable news shows.
Many believe the sitdown helped humanize Trump, and Rogan told him he gets endless publicity because he says "weird s***." It was a clearly sympathetic conversation, and Rogan said the media are "the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party."
Harris was also in talks to do Rogan’s Spotify podcast, and he said she was welcome there, but if he wanted her, she’d be taping the show today. To save face, she then announced that she had scheduling issues. Instead, Harris did Brene Brown’s prodcast, who obviously appeals to women. The vice president needs to improve her gender gap among men.
With one week till the election, every message and misstep counts. And every day you’re playing defense is a lost opportunity.