What the Media Missed: Trump’s twisted speech and silence on immigration
Welcome to What the Media Missed, where we dig into the many examples of legacy media malpractice that disgraced the nation’s front pages this week—while highlighting how Daily Kos goes past the spin to uncover the real horror stories of our new Trump era.
Trump’s twisted speech
If you read some of the legacy media headlines the morning after President Donald Trump’s address to Congress on Tuesday, you could be mistaken for thinking the nearly two-hour rantfest was a pretty run-of-the-mill policy speech. Except as Daily Kos reported, Trump’s speech was actually an unhinged laundry list of racist tropes and fake statistics that will go down in history as one of the most inconsequential (and incoherent) presidential addresses in modern history in addition to being the longest.
What The New York Times called a “defiant victory lap,” Daily Kos called a speech in which Trump never once used the words “health care,” “abortion,” “gun violence,” or “civil rights”—but made at least half a dozen references to Latino migrants as “savages,” “monsters” and a “corruption” that would destroy American communities. So, maybe a bit of a difference of opinion there.
Daily Kos also connected a few dots our friends on cable missed. Trump spent most of the night boosting his global trade war and hyping up the cure-all power of tariffs. It was clear Trump intended for his tariff legacy to be the most enduring part of his second term, a landmark achievement all his own. Except it took Trump less than a week to abandon the tariffs he’d just launched, his hand forced by polling that shows a majority of voters blame the tariffs for raising prices at the pump and the grocery store. Whoops!
Now that Trump has left congressional Republicans holding the bag on a bunch of looming tariffs, the president has embarked on a bold new strategy: Just pretend you never meant to enact those tariffs in the first place. Trump’s flip-flop (technically his third tariff flip-flop since January) has left his base (and the stock market) frustrated and Republican credibility shot.
Silence on immigration
Trump may have fired a salvo of racism and bigotry at legal and illegal Latinomigrants, but the media sure isn’t eager to pick up the story. Coverage of immigration issues in mainstream outlets declined every week of February, even as the White House gears up for sweeping new deportation raids—including potentially revoking the legal status of more than 240,000 lawful Ukrainian migrants.
The media’s silence has been a boon for disgraced politicians seeking to salvage their careers by enabling Trump’s immigration raids. That’s the case for New York Mayor Eric Adams, who faced tough questioning from New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over his plan to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids despite New York’s status as a sanctuary city. Daily Kos also reported on how Adams was the only mayor in attendance who Republicans praised for his willingness to cooperate with ICE deportation raids.
Adams’ surrender to Trump’s ICE policies barely makes national headlines, but it’s an approach Trump is using as a model to try and crack moderate Democratic elected officials at the state and local level. As Adams’ defection proves, sometimes the timely dismissal of a federal criminal lawsuit by a friendly president can work wonders to shift a craven politician’s values.
While Trump may be unfolding the next phase of his brutal anti-immigrant policy outside the headlines, that silence shouldn’t be confused with inaction. Humiliated by recent deportation numbers that show him lagging behind former President Joe Biden, Trump is now determined to spend whatever it takes to mount the largest deportation operation in American history. Don’t look away.
Bad Education
Billionaire businesswoman and part-time pro wrestler Linda McMahon was confirmed to lead the Department of Education this week, just in time for Trump to declare that he’s just going to go ahead and dissolve the whole department. But as even McMahon said during her confirmation hearing, Trump doesn’t actually have the power to do that. If he wants the Education Department gone, the White House needs an act of Congress.
When news of Trump’s move against the DoE emerged, the media did what they did best by minimizing the idea as just a “draft” executive order, while publishing articles that provided Trump with a hypothetical legal roadmap for how to defend his actions. Other outlets urged Americans to trust the court system, even though Daily Kos reported on Thursday that federal judges are facing a rising number of death threats for defying Trump’s extreme wishes.
Daily Kos got to the point in its coverage this week, writing that “You can kiss public education goodbye—Trump’s about to kill it.” We also cast doubt on the wisdom of trusting someone like McMahon, who has made big promises to Congress before conveniently forgetting her past words.
Just three days after her confirmation hearing, McMahon was already backpedaling on whether or not Trump had the power to dissolve the DoE. “My vision is aligned with the president’s,” McMahon wrote in her first email as secretary of Education. “This is our opportunity to perform one final, unforgettable public service to future generations of students.” That … doesn’t sound like a Cabinet secretary planning on a long term of service. Don’t worry! Nothing to see here!
Headline Watch with Oliver Willis
On the other hand … it’s the best presidential speech ever given by a felon.