The New York Post is known for its memorable headlines, including the legendary “Headless Body in Topless Bar.”
And on Saturday, the front page of the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid had a headline that will be remembered for years to come:
“Deranged Trump threatens violence against Bragg, who gets death note BAT HIT CRAZY.”
Alongside the headline was a large photo of Donald Trump menacingly brandishing a baseball bat. Below it was a composite photo of Trump holding the bat next to an image of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. that Trump posted Thursday on his Truth Social platform. It was deleted on Friday.
Trump has been raging against Bragg, warning of “death and destruction” if the prosecutor indicts the former president in the case involving hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
The cover was a lead-in to a scathing editorial headlined: “Trump won’t change, and that shows he can’t win.”
The Post editorial board wrote:
“This is Donald Trump. He hasn’t changed in the slightest. There is no shame. After riling up rioters, cheering for a coup, and agreeing that his vice president needed to be hanged, he’s back to making violent threats against fellow Americans.
“But wait, you say. This is a biased prosecution. Trump has every right to be upset. We don’t disagree. This is not a felony case, and Bragg trying to turn it into one is pure politics. But rather than seek his vindication in the courtroom, or even just make an impassioned speech, Trump wants to inspire a mob.
“Time and time again, Trump’s responses have been unhinged, indicative, and self-defeating.”
Is Rupert Murdoch dumping Trump? His media empire after all has been talking up Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as an alternative to Trump. But maybe Murdoch is being two-faced and playing both sides.
The New York Post, founded by Alexander Hamilton in 1801, is a money pit that has been losing millions of dollars annually in nearly every year since Murdoch bought it in 1976. But it gives Murdoch an opinion platform in New York City.
What really matters in the Murdoch-media empire is Fox News. We already know from legal filings in Dominion Voting Systems’ $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit that Murdoch and Fox hosts privately derided conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election while promoting Trump’s Big Lie on air. Their rationale for doing so was concern about losing viewers to other conservative news outlets such as Newsmax.
Fox has already announced that Sean Hannity will present an “exclusive interview” with Trump on his prime-time show on Monday, conducted in person at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. The Hill reported that it would mark Trump’s first appearance on the network since he announced another bid for the White House in November.
Does anyone think that Hannity, who spoke at a Trump election rally in 2018, will ask hardball questions?
Saturday’s editorial had this curious opening: “As some of his allies are trying to rewrite January 6 as an afternoon stroll, Donald Trump is having none of it.“
And just who exactly played the lead role in rewriting January 6 “as an afternoon stroll’? That would be Fox host Tucker Carlson, who cherry-picked security camera footage from the Capitol insurrection given to him exclusively by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
The editorial advised Trump supporters “don’t buy for a second when he says he’s ‘fighting for you.’”
It noted that if people “rose up” and got arrested, Trump “would abandon you, just as he has every ally who wasn’t useful to him anymore,” pointing out that Trump didn’t do anything for those locked up over Jan. 6 and failed to provide cash to the candidates he endorsed in the 2022 midterm elections.
The editorial board said Trump “is not trying to make America a better place … He’s out for revenge.”
It concluded:
“Americans know that Trump can’t stop himself from nursing piddling grudges and throwing out childish insults. … The emperor has no clothes. …
“You want a leader who will fight for you? Then you have to pick someone who can actually get elected. Republicans can’t throw away their shot in 2024.”
That alone could get Trump fuming and throwing more ketchup at the wall. Basically, Murdoch’s minions are calling Trump a loser.
And by the way what was Trump, who bragged about his high school baseball prowess, thinking in his deranged mind when he posted that photo of him with a baseball bat menacing Bragg? Was he imagining himself as Al Capone, played by Robert De Niro in the 1987 film “The Untouchables” who uses a baseball bat to beat to death one of his gang members for failing him.
CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former Democratic special counsel during Trump's first impeachment, noted that threatening a prosecutor is a crime in New York.
Eisen tweeted that Trump’s made a "sickening threat" and a "call for violence" that even the Mob wouldn’t do. He considered it “just as bad & maybe worse” than Trump’s “will be wild” Tweet calling on supporters to rally in Washington on Jan. 6.
