We Should Care About Who Is in the President’s Ear

It’s the kind of incestuous relationship that should make us all uncomfortable.

Politics and media should not be so tightly entwined that one is in the position to feed off of, or draw from the other.

There are dividing lines and proper lanes.

It is the place of media to report on what is going on in government honestly, and with an unbiased eye.

We know that hasn’t been the case for a very long time. The majority of network news outlets are notoriously left-leaning. We’re at a point now that they don’t even try to hide it.

None of that should have been taken as a solid business model, but all it took was the introduction of a would-be strongman, and no matter how abhorrent his behavior, or disreputable his associations, the sole “rightwing” news outlet, Fox News, fell into line behind Donald Trump.

We can’t really be surprised, given the long, personal relationship between Trump and former Fox News CEO Roger Ailes.

Rumors abounded through the primary season of 2015 and 2016 that Ailes had given the directive to sink other, more qualified and scrupulous candidates in the running for the GOP nomination.

In particular, Ailes had a real problem with Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and the hit was on.

I also remember watching a particular Fox Business host go so unfairly hard at former Texas Governor Rick Perry that it almost seemed personal. The ferociousness of it certainly seemed to catch the future Energy secretary off guard.

Seriously… the guy stopped just short of calling Perry’s mother an obscene name.

The fix was in, with every news network treating Trump as if he were already emperor, yet, for different reasons.

The leftwing outlets loved the ratings, and there may have been more than a slight notion that given the atmosphere of most Trump rallies, which hovered somewhere just beneath the Jerry Springer Show, in terms of intellectual heft, and general behavior, that this was only helping the Democrats.

For Fox News, every nightmarish rally to them was homage to their king. Their intent was to make their viewers forget there were more qualified candidates.

It worked.

And now, if you want to really know which way policy will go, more often than not, if you watch “Fox and Friends,” the Fox News morning show, or Sean Hannity’s prime time broadcast, you’ll get a good feel for where the president is at, on any given day.

The main problem is, Trump has no ideological views of his own. He simply parrots the last person that was in his ear, whether it was the “Fox and Friends” hosts or late night whisperings from Hannity.

His Twitter feed often gives that away.

A recent New York Magazine article by Olivia Nuzzi highlights the unusually close relationship between Trump and his most ardent defender on the whole Fox lineup.

Trump, as it has been reported in the past, does not spend his nights with wife Melania. Instead, according to Nuzzi’s report, he regularly takes calls from Hannity after the primetime giant wraps up his 10 p.m. show on Fox News,

That chat, which starts with casual small talk, is one of multiple calls the pair have some days, per Nuzzi. “I just hung up with Hannity,” Trump will often announce to White House staff.

Their conversations range from talks of the Russia “witch hunt” to dishing about ratings and other cable news hosts. There are also a lot of expletives, specifically…

I left out that last bit, but let’s just say there are a lot of F’s involved.

Further, Trump had to be weened off of other networks, such as MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” with former pals, Joe Scarborough and his lady love, Mika Brzezinski. There was apparently a falling out there, and their criticism of Trump each day would make him nuts.

The same could be said of CNN’s “New Day,” which also sent the petulant man-baby into howling fits.

It was former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and former chief strategist Steve Bannon that convinced him to stay away from those networks that didn’t stroke his ego and to spend his mornings and nights immersing himself in the adoration of the Fox News talent.

With that much power given to one network, you’d have to suspect that there could be other problems.

White House staff believe there are.

“Sometimes on Fox, a lot of stories are embellished, and they don’t necessarily cover the big news stories of the day,” one current White House official told Nuzzi. “When they cover the smaller stories, if that gets the president riled up, then that becomes an issue. Whenever he tweets, all of us do a mad dash or mad scramble to find out as much information about that random topic as possible. We’re used to it in a lot of ways, so it’s part of our morning routine.”

It sounds like a horrible job.

In the words of one former White House official, it’s a “f-up feedback loop,” putting Trump “in a weird headspace. What ends up happening is Judge Jeanine or Hannity fill him up with a bunch of crazy s**t, and everyone on staff has to go and knock down all the f****** fires they started.”

Because the man has no thoughts that are his own.

Hannity has scoffed at the idea that he’s an “unofficial adviser” to the president, but he has access. He has an unusual amount of access, and his fingerprints are seen all over Trump’s tweets.

The danger becomes a case of news outlets steering the news cycle, rather than simply reporting the news.

Unelected individuals, with no oversight, no system of checks and balances are worming their way inside the mind of a weak man, who just happens to be leading this nation, right now.

I’m not comfortable with it. I don’t think any of us should be.