Moments after President Donald Trump concluded a press conference at which he unleashed numerous attacks on the press, his fundraising committee circulated a “Mainstream Media Accountability Survey” urging supporters to “do your part to fight back against the media’s attacks and deceptions.”
Trump and his administration have engaged in an unprecedented war on the press. The president routinely singles out legitimate outlets and reporters as “fake news,” and his chief strategist has labeled the press the “opposition party.” During his February 16 press conference, Trump was particularly "combative" with reporters, turning the event -- which was ostensibly to announce a new labor secretary nominee -- into a “screed against the media.”
The email blast from the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, which presumably is also an attempt to build its email list, calls his supporters “our last line of defense against the media’s hit jobs” and urges readers to fill out a “Mainstream Media Accountability Survey” in order to “do your part to fight back against the media’s attacks and deceptions”:
The survey asks respondents whether they “trust” CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC to “report fairly on Trump's presidency” and asks, “On which issues does the mainstream media do the worst job of representing Republicans”:
The survey also includes laughable push-poll questions such as, “Were you aware that a poll was released revealing that a majority of Americans actually supported President Trump's temporary restriction executive order?”; “Do you believe that political correctness has created biased news coverage on both illegal immigration and radical Islamic terrorism?”; and “Do you believe that contrary to what the media says, raising taxes does not create jobs?”
The survey contains at least one serious grammatical error:
The last question of the survey asks, “Do you believe that our Party should spend more time and resources holding the mainstream media accountable?”
Submitting the survey leads the user to a fundraising pitch for Trump Make America Great Again Committee, “a joint fundraising committee composed of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. (‘DJTP’) and the Republican National Committee (‘RNC’).”
During the campaign, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee sent out a similar “Mainstream Media Accountability Survey,” complaining that the media was “trying to rig this election against us”:
The full February 16 survey: