They're doing what they do ... they covered him when he was making a spectacle of himself earlier race and probably found he was good for ratings.
Yup. Back during the primaries, and early on in the presidential race, Trump got lots and lots of coverage, because it generated ratings. Clinton didn't generate ratings (small rallies, no press conferences, relatively sane, boring). What little coverage Clinton got was from the emails, so it was mostly negative, far more negative than Trump's coverage. And many of the media outlets (TV) got criticized for it, and they openly discussed it on air, almost apologetically.
But the tenor has changed, where Trump's coverage isn't merely coverage of his wild and crazy statements, but it's full-on anti-Trump, while Clinton is consistently praised and the things that would normally damage her campaign are brushed off as unimportant or not even covered. CNN and the NYT (a big contributor to her campaign and her Foundation, incidentally) are arguably the two worst offenders. They are, for all intensive purposes (that was intentional
), part of the Clinton campaign. I used to watch a lot of
CBSN (the online network where second presidential debate moderator Elaine Quijano is the daytime anchor). But it's getting harder and harder to watch. They do a lot of hard news, unlike CNN these days, but anymore when it moves to politics, it's basically just a reporter interviewing another reporter about how evil Trump is.
Because the MSN, in lockstep with Hillary's campaign, will go through the returns and pick and choose things they can create fake outrage with.
Is it possible that there might be something in those returns that people rightly ought to be outraged about ?
Particularly given Mr. Trump's representations about his own financial condition and wealth ?
Sure, it's certainly possible. But a lack of evidence is hardly evidence of anything. The "Only guilty people have something to hide" argument is always a failing argument. That's the bread and butter of conspiracy theories... and cops.
Romney got criticized for legally paying only 14% of his income in taxes. People were outraged. They weren't really happy with him holding money in offshore accounts to legally avoid paying taxes. He didn't do anything wrong, but all people could talk about was that 14%. And most of those who talked about never even once looked at his returns to se how he was only able to pay that amount. They were outraged because they were told to be outraged. Trump is basically a large corporate enterprise, and that complexity is going to be reflected in his tax returns. That's why every political reporter wants to get a hold of them, like a kid in a candy store.
Incidentally, did you know that, unlike Congress, cabinet members and others in appointed and elected positions, Presidents are exempt from conflict-of-interest laws.
That's why I think that, while we don't need congressional legislation requiring presidential candidates to release their tax records, we do need one requiring them do so once they are elected to the office, either within 10 days after the inauguration, or at any time between the election and the inauguration. They may be exempt from conflict-of-interest laws, but at least we'd be able to better scrutinize their executive order and policies while in office. I think with Trump, that's even more true.
