Former president Donald Trump's decision to participate in a CNN town hall next week came as a surprise to many given his history of deriding the network as "fake news." But Team Trump is reportedly trying to spin Trump's appearance as an act of bravery.
"President Trump is running to be President for all Americans. Going outside the traditional Republican 'comfort zone' was a key to President Trump's success in 2016," a senior Trump adviser told the Daily Caller in explaining the decision to participate. "Some other candidates are too afraid to take this step in their quest to defeat Joe Biden, and are afraid to do anything other than Fox News."
"CNN executives made a compelling pitch," the adviser said. The event, which will be held in New Hampshire, will be hosted by Kaitlan Collins and will air on May 10 at 9 p.m. ET.
The approach is similar to that of GOP contender Vivek Ramaswamy, who tweeted ahead of his appearance on NBC's Meet the Press: "If you want to face down Xi Jinping, you can't hide from @NBCNews."
Trump's decision to appear on the network comes as he has faced criticism over his attacks on Florida governor Ron DeSantis, which have strangely relied on left-leaning sources.
Late last month, Trump shared a link to an article from MSNBC's The ReidOut blog along with an excerpt: "Ron DeSantis' D.C. charm offensive was a massive failure—Florida's governor, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, may have been looking for a coronation when he met lawmakers in Washington. He got a clown show, instead."
And in a press release, "The Real Ron DeSantis Playbook," the Trump campaign cited data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Florida Policy Institute as evidence that the Sunshine State is falling into "complete and total delinquency and destruction" under DeSantis's leadership. The former group is "dedicated to achieving racially and socially equitable public policy," while the latter is a left-of-center research institute.
In attacking DeSantis's record on Covid last month, Trump took a page from the Rebekah Jones playbook and suggested that Florida's Covid numbers "weren't what they pretended to be."
"Well actually if you look at the numbers, he didn't do a great job. If you take a look at the numbers, he's very high on crime," Trump said on the Full Send Podcast. "Very high, right at the top. Almost at the top. I think he gets good publicity, although now people are starting 'cause I'm putting out the Covid numbers, he didn't do well on Covid. He had more deaths than almost every country in Florida. I hate to say it 'cause Florida's my state, but he did not do well."
"It's really, it's very interesting," he added. "I don't wanna knock anybody, but the thing he did well on was public relations, because the numbers weren't what they pretended to be."
That conspiracy is in line with claims made by Jones, who alleged that, during her time at the Florida Department of Health, the state was misrepresenting the number of Covid-related deaths. Jones's claims were ultimately debunked, and she was fired in 2020 for insubordination.
Once you account for Florida's elderly population and the speed with which DeSantis reopened the state, the Florida governor's Covid record comes out looking pretty impressive. It also stands in sharp contrast to then-president Trump's deference to Dr. Anthony Fauci — a line of attack DeSantis has begun to rely on during public appearances.
Trump's campaign has doubled down on its attacks on DeSantis in recent weeks. The Trump-aligned MAGA, Inc. PAC spent almost $8 million on anti-DeSantis ads in April. The group has spent just $1,500 on pro-Trump ads.
Biden is also busy crowd-testing misleading attacks in the run-up to the 2024 showdown.
The president's latest reelection ad shows that he plans to campaign on many of the same falsehoods he has touted over his first two years in office.
"When he came to office, the pandemic was raging, the economy was reeling and American democracy was under attack," the ad begins. Then, the president launches into two lies he just can't stop repeating.
Under Biden's leadership, more than 12 million jobs have been created, the ad claims. "That's more jobs than any president's created in four." It's a claim Biden has made repeatedly, including in a speech the day he announced his reelection bid.
But it's not quite true.
Biden is correct that by raw numbers, his administration has overseen a larger increase in new jobs over two years than other presidents saw in their four-year terms. The U.S. economy added 12.1 million jobs from January 2021 to January 2023. But this job growth is distorted because it followed unprecedented job losses caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The economy has added just 8.5 percent more jobs under Biden. By contrast, President Barack Obama's first term saw an 8.6 percent increase, and President Bill Clinton's first term saw a 10.5 percent increase. Going further back, President Ronald Reagan's second term saw an 11.2 percent increase, President Jimmy Carter's a 12.8 percent increase.
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