On Dec. 29, 1170, four knights loyal to King Henry II entered Canterbury Cathedral and hacked Archbishop Thomas Becket to death. Becket had been in a public dispute with the despot over the role of the church. Henry denied any intention to have Becket murdered and condemned it.
In fact, Henry had not ordered the killing. A dictator never needs to be so direct. Instead, the King had simply mused aloud at a Christmas party, “will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?”
But as Trump prepares to take office next month, it is clear Trump has learned a lesson or two from King Henry. Unfortunately, legacy media remains as credulous as ever.
In 2016, Donald Trump was famously direct. He said that he “could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” He regularly led chants to lock up Hillary Clinton. Back then, the media struggled with what to make of such direct threats. They settled on a hapless formulation — take him seriously but not literally — that resulted in a deadly insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
While Trump has learned how to play the media in the last four years, legacy media has largely given up the fight. This was on evident display on Sunday when Kristen Welker interviewed Donald Trump on Meet the Press.
When asked if Trump thought Liz Cheney and other members of the Jan. 6 committee should be prosecuted, he said that though he thought they should be jailed, he wanted his new attorney general “to do what she wants to do. I’m not going to instruct her to do it.” When asked whether Kash Patel should investigate people on his lengthy enemies list, Trump said only: “I mean, he’s going to do what he thinks is right.”
The message was clear. Trump might just as well have simply asked, “will no one rid me of these meddlesome political opponents?” Yet, that is not how it has landed in most of the legacy media — if it landed at all.
Perhaps the worst coverage, ironically, came from…
