President Trump took aim at historically conservative news aggregate giant Drudge Report, saying the site opposed his bid for president in 2016.
On Tuesday, the president blasted the site for linking to an article focusing on his denial that he took an emergency visit to Walter Reed Medical Center in 2019 after suffering a series of “mini-strokes,” a response to claims written in a book by New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt. However, Schmidt did not specifically write that the president suffered “mini-strokes.”
“Drudge didn’t support me in 2016, and I hear he doesn’t support me now. Maybe that’s why he is doing poorly. His Fake News report on Mini-Strokes is incorrect. Possibly thinking about himself, or the other party’s ‘candidate,'” Trump tweeted.
Drudge didn’t support me in 2016, and I hear he doesn’t support me now. Maybe that’s why he is doing poorly. His Fake News report on Mini-Strokes is incorrect. Possibly thinking about himself, or the other party’s “candidate”. https://t.co/9FraoFqOKq
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 1, 2020
In a phone call between Columbia Journalism Review’s Bob Norman and Matt Drudge, the founder of the Drudge Report, the highly trafficked site’s owner reportedly said he was “all in on Trump during the [2016] election” but noted, “that was three years ago.” Norman described the conversation as “a clear distancing from the president.”
Several conservatives have chided Drudge for its aggregation of stories often perceived as critical of Trump’s presidency, including Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Earlier this summer, Carlson accused Drudge of being a “man of the progressive Left.”
“If you’ve seen the Drudge Report recently, you know that it has changed dramatically — 180 degrees. Matt Drudge is now firmly a man of the progressive Left,” Carlson said. “At times, his site is indistinguishable from the Daily Beast or any other woke propaganda outlet posing as a news company.”
Conservative alternatives to the Drudge Report have emerged, including Citizen Free Press, an aggregate site that amassed approximately 45 million page views in July, and the Bongino Report.
Citizen Free Press’s anonymous owner, who goes by the alias Kane, told the Washington Examiner earlier in 2020 that he believes Drudge “let his audience down.”
“As for being an alternative, I don’t think of it as being an alternative to Drudge, I think of it as an alternative to news junkies,” Kane said. “The great majority of Drudge readers were news junkies that happened to lean conservative, and to me, that’s what was always the great value of Drudge. Providing a one-stop place where you can find 50 interesting stories. I am filling the void left by Drudge’s considerable shift to the Left.”
In January, former secret service agent Dan Bongino, the owner of the Bongino Report, encouraged conservative readers to shift away from Drudge and onto his site.
“Drudge has abandoned you. We never will,” he tweeted while promoting his site, which launched in December 2019. Teasing the site the month before its launch, Bongino said his site will feature “exclusively conservative and libertarian content.”
Schmidt’s book claims that Vice President Mike Pence was “on standby to take over the powers of the presidency temporarily if Trump had to undergo a procedure that would have required him to be anesthetized” amid the visit. Trump never needed to be anesthetized, and Pence never assumed the presidency, Schmidt said.
“The reason for Trump’s trip to the doctor remains a mystery,” he notes in the book.
“It never ends!” Trump initially responded to the news of the book. “Now they are trying to say that your favorite President, me, went to Walter Reed Medical Center, having suffered a series of mini-strokes. Never happened to THIS candidate – FAKE NEWS. Perhaps they are referring to another candidate from another Party!”
The claim about “mini-strokes” seems to first appear by author Don Winslow, who claimed to have received “three communications” that Trump suffered mini-strokes. Winslow attached a video of Trump appearing to slur his words multiple times during a speech on foreign relations.
Sean Conley, the president’s physician, released a statement following Trump’s denial that said the president “has not experienced nor been evaluated for a cerebrovascular accident (stroke), transient ischemic attack (mini stroke), or any acute cardiovascular emergencies, as have been incorrectly reported in the media.”
“The president remains healthy and I have no concerns about his ability to maintain the rigorous schedule ahead of him. As stated in my last report, I expect him to remain fit to execute the duties of the Presidency,” he continued.
