October 2016

Statement on Monopoly Power of New Media Conglomerates

Donald Trump will break up the new media conglomerate oligopolies that have gained enormous control over our information, intrude into our personal lives, and in this election, are attempting to unduly influence America’s political process.

The very corporations that have gained from shipping America’s factories and jobs offshore are the very same media conglomerates now pushing Hillary Clinton’s agenda. She is the official candidate of the multinational ruling elite. NBC, and its Clinton megaphone MSNBC, were once owned by General Electric, a leader in offshoring factories to China. Now NBC has been bought by Comcast, which is specifically targeting the Chinese market – even as Comcast’s anchors and reporters at MSNBC engage in their Never Trump tactics. AT&T, the original and abusive “Ma Bell” telephone monopoly, is now trying to buy Time Warner and thus the wildly anti-Trump CNN. Donald Trump would never approve such a deal because it concentrates too much power in the hands of the too and powerful few.

The New York Times strings are being pulled by Mexico’s Carlos Slim, a billionaire who benefits from NAFTA and supports Hillary Clinton’s open border policies. Amazon, which controls the Washington Post, profits from the flow of illegally subsidized foreign products through its distribution channels. Lower costs mean higher margins -- no matter if bad trade deals lead to massive unemployment in America. This oligopolistic realignment of the American media along ideological and corporate lines is destroying an American democracy that depends on a free flow of information and freedom of thought.

Donald Trump will drain the swamp of corruption and collusion, standing against this trend and standing for the American people.

WikiLeaks’ Gift to American Democracy

You sure have to hand it to the Russians. They understand the power of free-flowing information, how it can upend government and politics. It’s why they don’t let information flow too freely in their own country. And it’s why, if United States intelligence assessments are correct, they have worked so hard to send it roaring through ours. There is a certain kind of brilliance to the way the Russians are said to have hacked the email accounts of senior Democratic officials and gifted the contents to their BFFs at WikiLeaks. The Russians seem to be using the United States’ free press — a great symbol of our democracy — against it while setting up an impossible choice for American newsrooms: Run with the stolen and in many cases unverified correspondence and potentially assist an audacious Russian attempt to disrupt a presidential election, or decline to print it and betray their mission to combat the great political fog machine.