I often surf the Sunday morning talk shows, in part because it’s a job-related chore, though sometimes it feels like penance.
I don’t know what my sins were, but they must have been grave. Because on Sunday, June 29, I found myself watching Donald Trump on “Sunday Morning Futures,” hosted by Maria Bartiromo — again.
Her show is what you might call a safe space for Trump. Bartiromo was once a serious financial journalist (and the subject of a song by the late Joey Ramone) before turning into a MAGA enthusiast and election denier. It was a weird turn, but honestly, at this point, just add it to the list.
I’ve seen enough of these “interviews,” in which Bartiromo brings up some of the issues of the moment and just lets Trump go, to know how they work. There is occasional mild pushback, as there was Sunday on a couple of topics, but in general it’s an interview subject’s dream — for Trump, especially: a set-up that looks like a real interview but is in fact just a platform for you to espouse boasts, lies and attacks and not be held accountable for them.
So it was Sunday, when Bartiromo ran down a list of items and Trump, in between complimenting his host (“We’ve been doing your show a long time, nobody like you”), talked like he was still running for president — in 2024. Who knows, in his mind, maybe he is.
For him, the campaign never ends.
The news, as such, was another threat against journalists. Trump’s insistence that U.S. bunker-busting bombs “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear capabilities in a June 21 attack was called into question almost immediately. CNN and the New York Times reported on June 25 that preliminary intelligence reports showed the damage ranged from moderate to severe, and that Iran’s nuclear program had not been set back years, but months.
Trump sent his attack dog, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, out to attack reporters in a bizarre media briefing on June 27. But on Bartiromo’s show, Trump went further. He claimed that Democrats leaked the report, and “they should be prosecuted.” He wouldn’t name names but said it would be easy to identify them.
“We can find out,” he said. “If they want to, we can find out easily. You go up and tell the reporter, ‘National security, who gave it?’ You have to do that, and I suspect we’ll be doing things like that.”
And I suspect any reporter worthy of the name will tell him no. It’s tempting to say, “See you in court,” but that’s not such a safe bet these days.
What a chilling proposition — chilling but not surprising. It’s all part of a continuing effort to silence any criticism, any suggestion that anything Trump does isn’t perfect. In MAGAland, this isn’t allowed. It’s all praise, all the time.
At least when it comes to Trump. When it comes to his favorite punching bag, Joe Biden, Trump just can’t stop talking. Perhaps someone should remind him that Biden wasn’t the Democratic candidate in 2024 — it was in all the papers. But there Trump was Sunday, railing against Biden and “the lunatics” who worked in the Oval Office during Biden’s term.
“I don’t think Biden knew what was happening,” Trump said, repeating an oft-used attack. He called Biden’s use of an autopen (a machine that copies a signature) one of the “biggest scandals in the history of the United States,” despite presidents as far back as Thomas Jefferson using a version of it — Democrats and Republicans.
Among the other attacks:
“Biden is a disaster.”
“Biden was so stupid. He said everybody had to have electric cars by 2030.” (He didn’t. He signed a mostly ceremonial executive order setting a goal for 50% of new cars and trucks sold by 2030 to be zero-emission.)
“If I didn’t get elected, I’m telling you, we wouldn’t have a country left,” Trump told Bartiromo, a repeated boast. “You know that better than anybody. Nobody covers it better than you.”
What a proud moment for Bartiromo.
She did offer mild pushback about deals with China. “How do you negotiate with obviously a bad actor and trust them on economics?” she said.
“You don’t think we do that to them?” he said of various nefarious acts. “We do. We do a lot of things.”
“That’s the way the world works?” Bartiromo said.
“That’s the way the world works,” Trump said. “It’s a nasty world.”
Is it, though? Or is that what you say when you’re trying to make yourself look like a tough guy at the expense of everyone else, and you have a “journalist” willing to go along with you? The answer seemed pretty clear on Sunday.
Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.