On MSNBC's AM Joy, Eric Boehlert: The Press Drew A Line In Trump Coverage When He Went “Too Far” With Vince Foster Conspiracy
Published
From the May 28 edition of MSNBC's AM Joy:
JOY REID (HOST): What should we in media do with that dichotomy of Donald Trump attacking the Clintons on the basis of sex now and what he said back then?
ERIC BOEHLERT: Well, that would be a good starting point. I haven't seen much of that in the last week talking about how he has, not only did he say nice things about the Clintons, he said Ken Starr is out of bounds, leave the Clintons' sex life alone, and things like that. Look, Trump now realizes that if he talks about Bill Clinton's sex life, if he talks about Clintons' scandals, the press loves it. I mean it is heaven.
REID: Why do you suppose that is?
BOEHLERT: It's a whole other show, right? So it's this dysfunctional relationship with the Clintons. They resented him the day he came into office, what's this young guy doing in the office? We could be president if he's president. That type of thing. He took the party in a different direction. Whole bunch of different reasons. But he realizes that if he talks about it, he will get headlines, he will get coverage. The press has made clear they are absolutely agreeing that Bill Clinton's sex life from 20 years ago should be part of presidential campaign. The mistake he made was Vince Foster. He went too far and he got some real push back with the press, which was very interesting. He didn't realize there was these sort of demarcation lines within the press. Sex is fine, we're going to talk about it. Is he going to hurt his wife? What's Hillary going to do? Once Trump started talking about the suicide, it seemed --
REID: That's too far.
BOEHLERT: Yeah. It was ghastly and a lot of people in the press said no, we're not going to do that. We'll do a lot of things for you Donald Trump. We're not going to be digging up dead bodies in a disgusting way. And then Vince Foster's sister wrote that piece.
REID: Sure.
BOEHLERT: And if you notice, the 90s stuff kind of evaporated in the last 48 hours as Jamal said. I think it's whatever Roger Stone emails Donald Trump in the middle of the night, he wakes up and that's their strategy, but it's only for 24 hours.
Previously:
Vince Foster’s Sister In Wash. Post: “Trump Should Be Ashamed” For Pushing Murder Conspiracy Theory