CNN’s Chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta seemed to suggest Wednesday night that President Trump wants to extend his term is office, adding fuel to the latest media-driven anti-Trump conspiracy theory
At rally in Panama City Trump jokes about staying in office “10 or 14” years. But he’s only joking, he says.
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) May 9, 2019
President Trump was holding a “Make America Great Again Rally” in Panama City, Florida, where he held forth before an enthusiastic crowd of about 7,500.
🚨HAPPENING NOW-@realDonaldTrump #MAGA rally begins in Panama City Beach, Florida… pic.twitter.com/xgzMMoK1BA
— Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸🦅 (@DanScavino) May 9, 2019
One of the dopier left-wing fever dreams since Trump came into office is the idea that he wants to make himself “dictator for life.” This paranoid delusion spiked after Liberty University President Jerry Falwell Jr. joked in a tweet over the weekend that Trump should extend his first term two years to make up for the lost time stolen by the deep state’s ” corrupt failed coup.” To the left’s horror, President Trump retweeted Falwell’s tweet.
After the best week ever for @realDonaldTrump – no obstruction, no collusion, NYT admits @BarackObama did spy on his campaign, & the economy is soaring. I now support reparations-Trump should have 2 yrs added to his 1st term as pay back for time stolen by this corrupt failed coup
— Jerry Falwell (@JerryFalwellJr) May 5, 2019
This “controversy” gave the Resistance media an excuse to pivot away from the stale collusion delusion to the shiny new despot delusion.
“If we win by four seats, by a thousand votes each, he’s not going to respect the election,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) fretted in a New York Times piece last week. “He would poison the public mind. He would challenge each of the races. He would say you can’t seat these people.”
Fox News highlighted some of the conspiracy-mongers:
MSNBC’s Joy Reid speculated on Sunday that Trump “doesn’t have any intention of committing to a peaceful transition of power,” while CNN’s editor-at-large Chris Cillizza was ridiculed Monday after tweeting a link to a fictional column he wrote about what would happen if Trump “refuses to admit” he loses in 2020. New York magazine even published a piece headlined, “How Worried Should Democrats Be That Trump Won’t Concede?”
CNN and MSNBC devoted segments to the topic – which were quickly picked up by watchdogs. MSNBC’s John Heilemann asked, “It seems psychotic to have to ask this question, but do you think Trump, in his mind somewhere, thinks he’s owed two more years?” Over on CNN, biographer Michael D’Antonio suggested Trump will try to “cook up” some reason to stay in office.
The Washington Post piled on with, “Two more years? Trump’s retweet sets off a furor over the idea of bonus time.”
DePaul University professor and media critic Jeffrey McCall told Fox News it’s “totally unnecessary for the news media to take a hair-on-fire approach to this notion that Trump won’t leave if defeated in the 2020 election” and said Pelosi’s rumination is the only flimsy basis for the fears.
But Pelosi’s utterance is based on her political posturing and comes with no stated evidence to support her concern. News outlets that push this totally speculative notion are allowing Pelosi to manipulate the news agenda,” McCall said. “That Pelosi is raising this prospect might have limited news value, but only if the story is covered with sufficient qualifiers to put her unsupported fears in context.”
Of course, the more deranged members of the anti-Trump media are completely incapable of covering Trump fairly and honestly. If they could, they would note that they made the same prediction about Trump in 2016 and the person who refused to lose gracefully in that race was not Trump, but Hillary Clinton.
But Trump got the last laugh at the rally, Wednesday night.
“Ya know, in six years, they’re all going to be out of business!” Trump declared, pointing to the “fake news media” in the back. Then, having a little fun with their latest conspiracy theory, he added: “Now, if we want to drive them crazy, I’ll say in ten years — they’ll go crazy! ‘See, he’s s a despot!'” he said mocking them. “Well, ten or fourteen, let’s see, whatever we like. Watch, there will be headlines tomorrow.”
Of course, Acosta took the bait.
He literally predicted you would tweet this and you still walked right into it. pic.twitter.com/sxsrY0amfq
— Matt Wolking (@MattWolking) May 9, 2019
(Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)