Campaign Action
If there was any doubt that Trump's supposed "border crisis" speech tonight was explicitly intended as a political event, Team Trump has been doing its best to dispel them. Trump himself is now using that speech as fundraising tool.
Trump in an email Tuesday afternoon asked supporters to donate to his "Official Secure the Border Fund" through the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a joint fundraising committee for the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee.
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"Please make a special contribution of $5 by 9 PM EST to our Official Secure the Border Fund to have your name sent to me after my speech," it added.
The networks have agreed to carry Trump's speech, even though media reporters have noted that executives themselves are certain it will be misleading, and even though they refused to carry a similarly premised 2014 Obama address under the pretext that his immigration message would be too "political." This is because they are dimwitted, perhaps, or it may be yet another example of the network impulse to elevate conservative speech over liberal speech at every last opportunity, from the Sunday talk shows to irrelevant know-nothing panel liars to the raging narcissist who they know, with near-certainty, will use their airwaves this evening to make false claims to the American public.
The networks bear responsibility for this mess. They could still change their minds, based on the information they now have on who is writing Trump's speech and how Trump himself is portraying it to his base. But they won't, and so they bear responsibility for whatever he says.