PETER JOHNSON JR.: He's on to American history. There’s a history in this country, something called yellow journalism. There’s a history in this country called a corrupt media, about publishers that own candidates, about publishers that -- I don't want to say a bad word, but proselytize certain parties. There's a double standard in this country in terms of the media, that you go after Republicans, you go after conservatives, you go after middle of the road people, and you try and crucify them if you can. So Donald Trump is responding to American history and he's saying to the American people, listen, I'm going to go toe to toe with the press. I'm going to use intemperate language, when I think they’re engaging in intemperate conduct towards me or anyone else. I'm going to go over the bounds when I think they go over the bounds. So in spite of the symbiotic situation where they live off each other, Trump and the media, it's also a Texas cage death match in that one of them needs to come out alive, and Donald Trump says to the media, you're not going to eat me alive. And yesterday was an eat me alive press conference where the press thought that they had the goods on Donald Trump and were going to take him down in his own building. And he said, not going to happen today, boys. And that's what happened yesterday.
AINSLEY EARHARDT: Even if it means that they might go back to their newspapers and write negative stories about him?
JOHNSON: Absolutely. That's a famous Indiana congressman, he said you don't fight with the press because they buy ink by the barrel. But Donald Trump has made the decision, à la Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, to say I can take on the bosses, I can take on the fixed media. Fox News did it, and in response to Fox News, the Clinton team, the Clinton machine, came up with an organization called Media Matters.
EARHARDT: Yeah.
JOHNSON: And their people financed it. And so they said, let's take Fox News down. There's an effort by the mainstream media and the mainstream liberal Democratic establishment, to take down candidates and take down media. And what Donald Trump is doing in his intemperate way, with some of the language that may have been above board, because I don’t think we should be criticizing folks personally, but in his jawboning way, he is pushing back, and he’s saying, I have a message, you may not like it, but you’re not going to take me down. I will be heard fair and square. I will either win or lose. But I will not lose because of an unfair media. And the American people like that message. Even a lot of Democrats like that message because they have seen an unfair media for a long, long time. In fact, people have been victimized by it. You ever seen those buttons, victim of the press? Yeah, there are victims of the press, Trump saying I'm not going to be a victim, no way, no how.
