During a rambling and largely nonsensical presser in Los Angeles on Friday, Trump constantly tripped over himself, outright rejecting important questions from reporters while making absurd claims, such as the fact that the country was “perfect” in January 2021.
In one portion of his speech, Trump badly botched the name of his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, by referring to her as “Comrade Howard” while shaking his head. He also referred to Harris as a “radical left Marxist Communist fascist,” an ideological combination that is technically impossible, and attacked her for her “woman-made destruction.”
Shortly after the speech ended, Trump had one final thought to share, which he posted in brief on Truth Social: “#.” At the time of publication, the post had more than 2,700 likes.
The tricky part of this is that Trump’s statements are believed in their entirety by his supporters, despite the fact that they are untrue. He has successfully managed to cast the act of holding politicians to account, a major function of the press, as a purely political act, at least in the opinion of its followers.
So the news media has to choose: it can hold Trump to account, and face accusations of political bias from one whole side. Or, it can not hold Trump to account for what he says at all, and maybe get less pushback from the other side. The safest way (which returns more value to shareholders) is the second option. If they push back at all, it would be safest to label it “opinion”, so as not to trigger people.
The reason why Biden’s performance during the debate didn’t merit the same treatment is that his party does not march in the same lockstep as the Republican base. So the story there was as much of the party’s reaction to it as to Biden’s Performance.