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Donald Trump has just had the best few weeks of his presidency.
No question. No argument. Period, end of paragraph.
It began with a bold gamble to send pilots to destroy Iran’s nuclear sites.
Then Trump managed to broker a cease-fire between Israel and Iran.
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Meanwhile, as Trump delayed his sky-high tariffs, the stock market hit record highs.
And he won a $16-million settlement from CBS’s parent company in his lawsuit against unfair editing by “60 Minutes.” That means he has now beaten two of the three broadcast networks, having won the same sum from ABC in a suit involving a crucial mistake by George Stephanopoulos.
And after days of pressure and arm-twisting, he managed to pass the Big Beautiful Bill.
President Trump’s been on a serious winning streak these past few weeks – culminating in the passage of his “big, beautiful bill.” (Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Make no mistake, the bill was always going to pass. What were Republicans going to say, never mind, we just tanked the president’s main legislative priority because we didn’t like this or that?
They didn’t need Democratic votes, under so-called reconciliation. And Trump controls the GOP. So its members fell into line.
Now the question is why, through this successful stretch, has Trump continued to draw such negative coverage?
For starters, many in the media just can’t stand the guy. And this has largely been true since 2015. So anything that helps him must be wrong and must be denigrated.
Even the successful strike on Iran drew only scattered instances of grudging praise, when under any other president there would have been standing ovations.
The press immediately reframed this as a debate over whether the bunker-busting bombs had only set back Iran’s nuclear program by a few months.
The press’ scant praise over Trump’s Iran strikes quickly devolved into debate over how far they really set back Tehran’s nuclear program. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
In fairness, that’s what the preliminary, classified Intel report leaked to the press said. And there’s nothing wrong with reporting that accurately, even though the assessment was made with low confidence.
But Trump wants reporters for CNN and the New York Times, which broke the story, fired over this, and with an FBI leak probe under way, says he may force journalists to reveal their confidential sources.
Once the White House could no longer blame anonymous sources, there is nothing wrong with quoting a government report – even if if turns out to be wrong.
The cease-fire between Israel and Iran was fine, but that quickly morphed into chatter about why Trump couldn’t pull off an end to the fighting between Israel and Hamas, a far more difficult task.
Not to mention his freezing of weapons shipments to Ukraine, when despite his “very disappointing” call with Vladimir Putin, who promptly unleashed the biggest drone and missile attack against Kyiv since the illegal invasion of its sovereign neighbor.
Perhaps the president is learning what has been obvious to the rest of us: Putin has no conceivable interest in peace.
Everyone had to report the stock market surge, though not with the enthusiasm of the earlier plunge, and Trump yesterday announced that he’d hit Japan and South Korea, two allies, with a 25 percent hike in tariffs. But they don’t take effect till Aug. 1, so this could just be another negotiating tactic.
There was also next to zero coverage of Trump’s $16 million settlement with Paramount. (Yuki Iwamura/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
There was almost no television coverage of Trump’s $16 million settlement with Paramount, which is nothing more than the news business protecting its own. If this had been any other kind of company – with the backstory that someone like Shari Redstone needed administration approval to sell the company and pocket $2 billion – the press would have gone haywire.
Now there’s a new twist. Fox’s Charlie Gasparino, writing for the New York Post, reported the Paramount settlement includes a side deal between Trump and for the buyer David Ellison, son of tech mogul Larry Ellison, for him to run $15 to $20 million in advertising supporting causes backed by the president.
And Trump confirmed it.
“We did a deal for about $16 million plus $16 million, or maybe more than that in advertising,” he told reporters.
Paramount denied any knowledge of the side deal.
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The president has also been drawn into a war of words with Elon Musk, calling him a “train wreck” who’s gone “off the rails” in forming a third party and raising the Epstein files again. Musk says the lack of an Epstein client list is the “final straw” – he had once apologized for raising it – and there’s no difference between the Republican and Democratic parties.
But there was one moment, in my view, that was a misstep by Trump.
The president had no need to negotiate with Democrats, who strongly opposed a tax cut tilted toward the wealthy while making deep cuts to Medicaid.
“Every Democrat in Congress voted against the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill…They wouldn’t vote only because they hate Trump, but I hate them, too, you know? I really do. I hate them. I cannot stand them, because I really believe they hate our country.”
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I don’t believe the overwhelming majority of Democrats hate their country. And that was hardly a unifying message on July 4 weekend. Maybe many in the media hate him and he was just counterpunching. But he didn’t need to go there.
On the other hand, Donald Trump has been getting terrible coverage since 2015, and he’s clearly grown tired of it.