Brad Parscale | Poll-Vaulter

December 4, 2019

Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign has announced that it no longer will approve credentials for Bloomberg News reporters after the financial media company said it wouldn’t cover Democratic presidential candidates—only reporting on Republican and Independent candidates—while its owner and founder, Mike Bloomberg, is out on the trail seeking the party’s nomination.

It’s anybody’s guess what effect the newly restrictive Trump campaign policy might have without a similar decision by the White House, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Bloomberg News occupies one of a handful of permanent seats in the White House press corps travel pool, which means a Bloomberg News reporter currently is with the president wherever he travels, including campaign events.

A White House spokesman declined to comment, but the POTUS weighed in on Twitter on Monday evening.

“Mini Mike Bloomberg has instructed his third rate news organization not to investigate him or any Democrat, but to go after President Trump, only,” @realDonaldTrump tweeted, adding it was “not O.K.!”

Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale commented that continuing to investigate President Trump, whom all of the Democratic presidential contenders are attempting to unseat, was an unfair reporting practice.

“The decision by Bloomberg News to formalize preferential reporting policies is troubling and wrong,” Parscale said in a statement obtained by the Journal. The campaign will engage with Bloomberg News reporters only on a “case-by-case basis,” he said.

“Since they have declared their bias openly, the Trump campaign will no longer credential representatives of Bloomberg News for rallies or other campaign events,” Parscale added.

John Micklethwait, editor in chief of Bloomberg News, said Parscale’s accusations “couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“We have covered Donald Trump fairly and in an unbiased way since he became a candidate in 2015 and will continue to do so despite the restrictions imposed by the Trump campaign,” he said in a statement.

According to The Wall Street Journal, “It is unusual for major-party presidential candidates to ban news outlets from events, but not for Trump. During his 2016 campaign he barred several media outlets, including The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and BuzzFeed News, from his campaign events for certain periods.”

Research contact:@WSJ

September 12, 2019

Although President Donald Trump already has “weaponized” his Twitter account to provide continual commentary on the politics, people, issues, and media that are top-of-mind in the Oval Office, soon he will have another way to get his message out to the U.S. electorate—an “America First” app.

According to a report by Politico, Trump’s reelection campaign plans to launch a smartphone app this fall to encourage his base of supporters to donate, volunteer, and reel in like-minded voters — all while providing the president with more unfiltered access to his followers.

Supporters who download the all-in-one app are expected to be able to sign up for a Make America Great Again rally, canvas a neighborhood, or call voters—maybe even register to vote as the campaign looks to turn passive supporters into activists.

But, perhaps the key feature will be the app’s use of prizes—maybe VIP seats or a selfie with the president—to persuade rabid Trumpers to recruit their friends, rewarding them as campaigns have been doing for top donors for years, according to people familiar with the plans, the news outlet says.

Trump‘s campaign didn’t respond to questions about the app, which originally had been scheduled to debut this summer. But Brad Parscale, Trump’s digital media director turned campaign manager, has spoken about his goal to directly contact and target millions more supporters than the campaign did in 2016.

“This is how Donald Trump stays president for four more years,” said Parscale, holding up his iPhone onstage at a Trump rally last year. “Now this phone is how we connect with you. It’s how we turn you into the army of Trump.”

The campaign already has acquired 200 million voter files from the Republican National Committee, Politico notes—and is spending millions on digital ads, texts, and rally attendee RSVPs to collect data on voters.

Indeed, the app could be used to gather supporter preferences, and then to create profiles that could be used to tailor specific messages to specific voters—down to the color of an ad.

What’s more, the app will not only offer a way to hear directly from Trump, but it give millions of diehard Trump voters a way to communicate with each other privately.

Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who worked for the RNC during the 2016 election, told Politico that Twitter, Facebook, and other social platforms allow Trump to communicate with all types of people while the campaign app will rally the base.

“It’s not this or that. It’s all of the above,” Spicer said. “I think in this day and age, it adds one more element.”

Research contact: @politico

Posts tagged with "Brad Parscale"

Trump campaign refuses to issue press credentials to Bloomberg News reporters

Trump to launch ‘America First’ smartphone app for his voter base