Only a day after he announced his candidacy for President, Donald Trump was already on the defensive.
“Well, the New York Post gave me a front-page cover that I wish you held that one up, instead of the failing Daily News,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday.
The Daily News had splashed Trump’s face across the front page, covered in clown makeup, bearing a big red nose. As he often does, Trump took to Twitter to rail against the paper further.
Only a fool would buy the @NYDailyNews. Loses fortune & has zero gravitas. Let it die!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2015
And that wasn’t the least of it.
“I’ve got a jerk named Krauthammer or George Will saying, ‘Oh gee, he doesn’t deserve to be in the race,'” he said, referencing conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, who the day before called him a candidate of “know-nothing xenophobia.”
It was the latest skirmish in the long war between Trump and the American media, a symbiotic relationship if there ever was one. Liberal, conservative, tabloid, broadsheet — Trump has tangled with them all.
With his hat officially in the ring for 2016 — for now, at least — some highlights of Trump’s media antics may provide a taste of what America has in store now that the Donald is a bona fide candidate.
Calling Arianna Huffinton ‘Unattractive’ And Congratulating Her Ex-Husband
Trump can hit below the belt. He has gone after Arianna Huffington and her news outlet on multiple occasions, calling the Huffington Post “an very dishonest organization,” and “a loser.”
“The @HuffingtonPost is a total joke & laughing stock of journalism, as is gross Arianna Huffington. They don’t report the facts!” he tweeted in February.
But for whatever reason, Trump in April took a more direct shot at Huffington’s looks and personal history (in 1997 she divorced her husband, who came out as bisexual in 1998) in a tweet calling her “unattractive.”
.@ariannahuff is unattractive both inside and out. I fully understand why her former husband left her for a man- he made a good decision.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 28, 2012
Sending Vanity Fair And Salon Handwritten Notes, Using Their Articles As Paper
Sometimes, Trump hops off Twitter for a more personal touch.
In 2011, while hyping his fake presidential run, he took issue with a blog post at Vanity Fair by scrawling a bunch of notes over a print-out of the article and sending it to them. The Sharpie scribblings included notes like, “thanks for the advice,” and “tell that to the crowd!”
To Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter, Trump wrote, “Graydon, I know far more about you than you know about me.”
After ProPublica and Salon writer Justin Elliott (a TPM alum) wrote an article questioning whether Trump would run for President while hiding his true net worth, Trump sent him a note in his own handwriting.
The letter, written on a print-out of Elliott’s piece, read:
Justin –
I have no problem — I would, in fact, file early — you will be very surprised.
Best wishes,
Donald Trump
Calling For Chris Matthews To Be Fired
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews suffered Trump’s ire after he joked on his show, “Hardball,” that the host of “Celebrity Apprentice” was probably ready to blame Obama for Hurricane Sandy.
“How long do you think it’ll take for Donald Trump to take a crack at the President for engineering [the storm]?” Matthews said.
Trump caught wind of the line and took to Twitter:
Tweet me back if u think we should start a petition to fire @hardball_chris for his comments on Sandy & the death & destruction it caused.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 8, 2012
Writing A Letter To NYT After Gail Collins Mocked His Birtherism
Trump once again defended his honor with a personal missive when he called out New York Times’ columnist Gail Collins for making fun of his birtherism in April 2011.
“I don’t need Ms. Collins’s advice,” he wrote. “There is a very large segment of our society who believe that Barack Obama, indeed, was not born in the United States.”
“Open your eyes, Gail,” he thundered near the end, “there’s at least a good chance that Barack Hussein Obama has made mincemeat out of our great and cherished Constitution!”
Read the whole thing, here.
Pissing Off Conservative Opinionators Like George Will And Charles Krauthammer
Trump’s beef with Krauthammer and George Will goes back. Perhaps because they’re embarrassed for the conservative side of the house, both columnists have made a point to ridicule Trump as clownish, and Trump has responded in kind.
Krauthammer’s latest jab at Trump was straightforward enough, calling Trump’s campaign an exercise in “know-nothing xenophobia.”
Trump responded on “Fox & Friends” the next day, calling him a “jerk” for dumping on his candidacy.
Will dismissed him as a “bloviating ignoramus” in May 2012, but Trump was still mocking the bow-tied polemicist by October of that year for predicting that Mitt Romney would not with the election.
George Will is a political moron. Last month he said Romney couldn’t win.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 9, 2012
Calling Brian Williams ‘Boring’
Nowadays, NBC anchor Brian Williams probably wishes he could go back to the days when his biggest problem was Donald Trump.
On election night 2012, Williams made fun of Trump for tweeting, saying the mogul had “driven well past the last exit to relevance.”
Trump responded with a few choice remarks for Williams, including a dig at the anchor for being “boring.”
.@bwilliams knows that I think his newscast has become totally boring so he took a shot at me last night. After a dip in the ratings and Williams’ eventual suspension, Trump may yet have the last laugh.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 7, 2012
TPM composite by Christine Frapech. Images via AP/Newseum.
Hilarious, this is the most fun presidential race ever. That insulting a woman’s physical appearance strategy is
brilliant. Who is his campaign manager. They must be a genius.
Trump criticized someone else as being “unattractive!” Really?? Really??? He’s a laff riot!!
From what I’ve read, Trump hasn’t taken any of the steps necessary to officially become a candidate. Considering the person involved, I’m calling bullshit until he officially becomes a candidate.
The comb-over, trumpie.is the Henry VIII of modern times…Spoiled and fawned over as a younger boy who grows into a old, paunchy, slavish, isolated, vindictive ,rapacious glutton with few morals and no ethics! Fearful and raging at all but his egoist self. Disgusting and classless.!
Republicans are the Harley Davidsons of politics. The passionate brand loyalty they inspire is completely divorced from the quality of the product, and no addition of chrome or subtraction of muffler is going to fundamentally change that.
The Rump, then, is Boss Hoss. So ridiculous and extreme that every rider will say, “nice bike” to his face, and switch to, “what a dumbass” before he shifts out of first gear.