
On Thursday evening, the New York Times published excerpts from an impromptu interview with President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, where he forecast the media industryâs downfall as evidence that heâll win again in 2020.
Noting âno aides were presentâ and that the president âsat aloneâ with the reporter conducting the interview, the Times piece is not, as one might expect, Trump at his frenzied, frenetic worst. Instead, the president comes off as an enormous simpleton. Toward the end of the interview, Trumpâs enormous ego makes an appearance when he argues that heâll absolutely be re-elected in 2020 because the entire American news media industry simply wouldnât survive without him.
Trump told the Times:
Another reason that Iâm going to win another four years is because newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if Iâm not there because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes. Without me, The New York Times will indeed be not the failing New York Times, but the failed New York Times.
So they basically have to let me win. And eventually, probably six months before the election, theyâll be loving me because theyâre saying, âPlease, please, donât lose Donald Trump.â O.K.ââ
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Like many of Trumpâs egotistical ramblings, thereâs a grain of truth here (an astronomically small one, but a grain nonetheless). Since announcing his candidacy back in June 2015, Trump hasâfor better and worseâdominated the media landscape to an astonishing degree, although the notion that the media as a whole requires Trumpâs antics to survive is patently ludicrous.
So does that mean the entire industry will, in fact, âtankâ should he fail to win reelection? Probably not! But itâs a chance Iâm more than willing to take.