Trump campaign
pulls plug on Bloomberg News
De-credentialing comes after organization publicly
announced its pro-Dem bias
WND Staff By WND Staff
Published December 2, 2019 at 12:38pm
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President Donald J. Trump participates in a bilateral
meeting with President of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the
G20 Japan Summit Saturday, June 29, 2019, in Osaka, Japan. (Official White
House Photo by Shealah Craighead)
Last week, Bloomberg News announced that it would not
investigate 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.
But it would continue to probe President Trump.
Now the president's campaign has responded by
de-credentialing the news organization.
Brad Parscale, the campaign manager, released a statement
Monday explaining the move.
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"The decision by Bloomberg News to formalize
preferential reporting policies is troubling and wrong," he said.
"Bloomberg News has declared that they won’t
investigate their boss or his Democrat competitors, many of whom are current
holders of high office, but will continue critical reporting on President
Trump. As President Trump’s campaign, we are accustomed to unfair reporting
practices, but most news organizations don’t announce their biases so publicly.
Presented with this new policy from Bloomberg News, our campaign was forced to
determine how to proceed," he said.
"Since they have declared their bias openly, the
Trump campaign will no longer credential representatives of Bloomberg News for
rallies or other campaign events. We will determine whether to engage with
individual reporters or answer inquiries from Bloomberg News on a case-by-case
basis. This will remain the policy of the Trump campaign until Bloomberg News
publicly rescinds its decision."
Radio host Rush Limbaugh said Monday he believes the
White House "ought to do the same thing."
"Just stop credentialing anybody from Bloomberg,
since they've openly said they're not going to cover any Democrats, good or
bad," he said.
Limbaugh said Bloomberg will never be elected president.
"I can say it with nearly ontological
certitude."
Howard Kurtz at Fox News
media analyst Howard Kurtz said the policy clearly favors the former
New York City mayor.
"This is a journalistic giant, churning out 5,000
stories a day, some of them market-moving. Bloomberg News has 2,700 journalists
spread across 150 bureaus around the globe, along with a television network, a
magazine and those extremely lucrative Wall Street terminals," he said of
Bloomberg News.
"But after the 77-year-old billionaire jumped into
the Democratic race, the news service’s editor-in-chief, John Micklethwait,
issued an edict to his staff. 'We will continue our tradition of not
investigating Mike (and his family and foundation),' the memo said. And that
prohibition would extend to his rivals in the party because 'We cannot treat
Mike’s Democratic competitors differently.'"
Kurtz said that puts everyone from Joe Biden to Bernie
Sanders to Cory Booker to Bloomberg "off-limits."
"But its team 'will continue to investigate the
Trump administration as the government of the day,'" he wrote.
"If you wanted to come up with a policy that would
seem to favor Bloomberg and his re-adopted party – he ran for mayor as a
Republican – while disadvantaging the man whose job he wants, it would be hard
to beat this," Kurtz wrote.
"I get that it’s a messy situation, but this is a
compromise that satisfies precisely no one. If Bloomberg’s family (and
presumably Joe Biden’s son) are off-limits, are Donald Trump’s kids still fair
game? Bloomberg News has always been squeamish about covering its founder. A
similarly restrictive policy was in place during Mayor Bloomberg’s 12-year
tenure. But now he’s running for the highest office in the land. What issue
doesn’t in some way touch on the presidential campaign?"
He noted, "Megan Murphy, Bloomberg’s former
Washington bureau chief, tweeted that the policy was 'ridiculous' and 'not
journalism.'"
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