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Newspaper publisher Mark Guerringue sits in the left chair this week and the producer asked if Trump's anti-media "enemy of the people" rhetoric contributed to a physical attack on a BBC reporter at his recent rally in El Paso. I say that it probably did because Trump often berates the media gallery who are also physically present there, especially CNN. Mark agrees.
From there we discuss American attitudes toward media of all kinds. I contend most distrust media and see it as biased. Mark says it has always been perceived as such. Then we discuss the transition from hard copy newspapers to online news sources given that his newspapers got going in the late 1980s just before internet's huge growth. I asked him to reflect on the future of one versus the other.
Mark believes hard copy newspapers will be dead in the not-too-distant future and reflects on the various reasons -- corporate ownership vs private ownership, choked ad revenue, etc.
Mark points to the Cohen testimony in a US House committee alleging campaign finance violations by Donald Trump when he paid off a former mistress during the 2016 campaign. I cite opinions by Alan Dershowitz that these payoffs did not violate any campaign finance laws and Democrats can stop drooling over using them to impeach Trump.
Mark contends that "we know [Trump] is a basically a criminal..." I tell him "Don't say we. Don't include me in that..."
Then he pivots to Trump's declaration of a national emergency over central Americans coming over the southern border and asks if I agree. I say yes. He disputes the declaration claiming that we have over 700 miles of wall and that drugs are coming mostly through ports of entry. I say that because drugs confiscated at such ports doesn't negate that they could be coming in other ways, and that we are overrun with drugs here in the USA.
I relate my visit to the border and the chaos I saw in our Border Patrol nine years ago, and that it's a lot worse now. And, that the wall I saw was something I could scale even at my age -- that it was ineffective as a barrier. Mark says everyone supports border security, but I say the Democrats want open borders. Dem presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke now calls for dismantling the walls we have because they're "immoral."
At one point Mark said we should change the subject from immigration because I was getting upset, "before you blow your cork." I counter that I'm making points he cannot refute. Then I raise the Jussie Smollett fake hate crime and relate it to the Covington Boy's High school kids who were vilified for wearing MAGA hats and connect it to Smollett.
Then Mark seemed to get upset that I'm casting mainstream media in a bad light. "What's the point?" he asks. I then relate a Massachusetts incident in which a woman assaults a man wearing a MAGA hat in a restaurant and cops respond. They fingerprint her revealing she's an illegal alien and they report her to ICE. As for all the hostility against MAGA hats, Mark says, "I think you can blame Trump... There's a lack of civility in all those things and Trump is setting the tone."
I point out that all but three Democrats voted against Senator Ben Sasse's bill to provide medical care for babies born alive after attempted abortions. Mark doubts babies are ever left to die, that no mother would permit it.
What Democrat can beat Trump? Mark picks Biden. I pick Klobuchar.
