The National Enquirer, the trashy and deceitful supermarket tabloid, has made no secret of its love for sexual predator and narcissist Donald "Rump" Trump. While targeting Rump's foes like Hillary Clinton with nasty slurs, it lavishes praise on him. The tabloid's owner, the appropriately named David "Little" Pecker, is a friend and confidant of Rump's, whom he's known since Rump's nightclubbing days in New York City.
Jeffrey Toobin has a fascinating, lengthy article in The New Yorker about the tabloid's worshipful relationship with Rump. An Enquirer editorial meeting recently gave some insight into Pecker's aversion to anything critical of his icon:
"Someone suggested a story about a video from Donald and Melania Trump’s first overseas trip. The video, which had just gone viral, showed the couple walking down a red carpet on the airport tarmac in Israel. When Donald reached for Melania’s hand, she slapped it away with a sharp flick of her wrist.“I didn’t see that,” Pecker said, on the speakerphone. The half-dozen or so men in the room exchanged looks. One then noted that the footage of Melania’s slap had received a good deal of attention.“I didn’t see that,” Pecker repeated, and the subject was dropped."During the 2016 elections, Pecker's rag was responsible for running some of the most vile accusations against Rump's opponents, famously the "story" that "Tailgunner" Ted Cruz's father was somehow connected with the assassination of President Kennedy. They were even more blatant and relentless in their attacks on Hillary Clinton:
It was even tougher on Hillary Clinton, regularly printing such headlines as ‘sociopath’ Hillary Clinton’s secret psych files exposed!” A 2015 piece began, 'Failing health and a deadly thirst for power are driving Hillary Clinton to an early grave, The National Enquirer has learned in a bombshell investigation. The desperate and deteriorating 67-year-old won’t make it to the White House—because she’ll be dead in six months.' On election eve, the Enquirer offered a special nine-page investigation under the headline 'Hillary: corrupt! racist! criminal!'But the truly ominous part of Toobin's article is the reporting that Pecker is contemplating buying Time, Inc., which is experiencing financial difficulty.
"Pecker is now considering expanding his business: he may bid to take over the financially strapped magazines of Time, Inc., which include Time, People, and Fortune. Based on his stewardship of his own publications, Pecker would almost certainly direct those magazines, and the journalists who work for them, to advance the interests of the President and to damage those of his opponents..." (emphasis added)Amoral hacks like Pecker have absolutely no respect for a free press in the service of the public. To him, as to many on the right-wing, it's a tool to advance a bankrupt philosophy and, in this case, an unhinged and dangerous demagogue chipping away at the nation's democratic institutions, first and foremost the First Amendment.
UPDATE: There's another story this morning about Pecker's rag attempting to blackmail Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski over Rump coverage, the basic truth of which the dimwit shitgibbon has now admitted. Calling New York Attorney General Schneiderman!
UPDATE II: Looks like one of the White House officials who delivered the "friendly advice" was young master Jared "Mr. Ivanka Trump" Kushner.
