Trump Launches Trump TV ‘Real News’ and Americans Want to Know if They’re Paying for It

‘Who Owns Trump TV? The Trump Organization? Is It a Kind of Campaign Contribution? Is That Legal? And Is There Any WH Cooperation?’ Asks Conservative Pundit

On Saturday CNN contributor Kayleigh McEnany announced on social media she was leaving the news network and would “be moving to a new role.”

“Stay tuned next week!” she said. On Sunday, President Donald Trump released a video on Facebook featuring McEnany delivering “Real News.”

“Join Kayleigh McEnany as she provides you the news of the week from Trump Tower in New York! #MAGA #TeamTrump” the President posted to Facebook.

Now taxpayers are demanding to know who’s paying for it.

“Thank you for joining us as we provide you the news of the week from Trump Tower here in New York,” McEnany tells viewers on Facebook and Twitter. In just 24 hours her video (above) has been viewed more than 1.1 million times on Facebook alone. (Twitter does not publicly provide viewing statistics.)

After rattling off positive economic indicators, including the unemployment rate and consumer confidence levels, McEnany, in her “news” video, “reports” that “President Trump has clearly steered the economy back in the right direction.” Many economists disagree, believing Trump is benefiting from policies of the Obama administration, is “overstating his responsibility for recent better growth and jobs numbers,” and “might also be a drag on growth.”

McEnany’s “news” is not entirely fact-based. “For decades, a steady rise in immigration has depressed the wages of American workers,” McEnany falsely states. She also claims Trump’s newly-announced attack on legal immigration will “raise wages, decrease poverty, and save the taxpayers billions.” That’s at best disputable.

Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama, Michael McFaul, said the video “Feels eerily like so many state-owned channels I’ve watched in other countries.”

And CNN investigative reporter Andrew Kaczynski noted, “You get the same vibe from this broadcast as those paid-programming news-style programs that air at 3am.” 

The video begins with the Trump-Pence campaign logo and ends with a photo of Trump at a campaign rally. 

Many on social media, even conservatives like Bill Kristol, are demanding to know if taxpayers are paying for this Trump propaganda. 

Others:

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Rob Tornoe reports the funding of Trump TV is coming from the Trump re-election campaign.

“The program, which had previously been hosted by Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump and is paid for with funds from Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign, appears to align with rumors that first appeared during the 2016 campaign of the development of a “Trump TV” program,” Tornoe states.

HuffPost UK says now that thee’s Trump propaganda TV, “Trump Has Gone Full-North Korea.”

To comment on this article and other NCRM content, visit our Facebook page.