David Weigel

Rep Dave Trott (R-MI) had just wrapped up a boisterous town hall meeting in Novi, northwest of Detroit, and he was headed backstage — where a member of his team brainstormed an angle for the news media. After Rep Trott defended the Trump administration’s budget increase for defense funding, paid for by cuts to discretionary spending, he was booed in a politically potent way. “We’re going to take that part where they’re booing funding the military, and I’m gonna get somebody to write a story, and we’re going to promote the s— out of that,” Republican strategist Stu Sandler could be heard saying on a video recorded by local TV station WDIV and uploaded by the district’s local branch of the Indivisible project. “It’s un-American crap.”

Sandler confirmed that he was the voice on the tape, telling The Post that he was genuinely put off by the crowd’s reaction. “I was shocked and appalled at the majority of the audience that booed Congressman Trott when he stated ‘I support more funding for our military,’ Sandler explained in an email. “Our troops deserve better equipment and more pay.” On “Fox and Friends,” a morning show that President Trump watches regularly, co-host Ainsley Earhardt framed the moment exactly the way Sandler wanted it. In a short segment, Rep Trott portrayed himself as a defender of pay raises for the military, standing up to “Bernie Sanders socialists” and other malcontents.

In a floor speech, House Science Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX), praised the physical and mental powers of President Donald Trump and encouraged people to get “unvarnished” news directly from the president, not from the news media.

“Just think what the media would be saying about President Trump if he were a Democrat,” Rep Smith said during the evening time reserved for one-minute speeches. “He has tremendous energy. He campaigned for 18 months, puts in 15-hour days, and has the stamina of a bull elephant, like Teddy Roosevelt. He is courageous and fearless. Given the amount of hate directed his way, no doubt he constantly receives death threats, but that doesn’t curtail his public appearances or seem to worry him in the least.” “The national liberal media won’t print that, or air it, or post it,” Rep Smith said. “Better to get your news directly from the president. In fact, it might be the only way to get the unvarnished truth.” Rep Smith is also a member of the House Freedom of the Press caucus.

By now, everyone's aware that Donald Trump wandered off message June 5 and told an audience in Raleigh (NC) that Saddam Hussein, for all his sins, "killed terrorists." So what was different about June 5? Hillary Clinton's campaign said it was different. In Politico, we learn that Trump's Hussein praise "finally caught up with him" because "Hillary Clinton's campaign tore into his latest comments." NBC News notes that Trump said this at a rally with Sen Bob Corker (R-TN), which could lead to a clash and some awkward questions; otherwise, the only new thing is that "Hillary Clinton's campaign seized the opportunity to once more paint Trump as unfit for office." And so on.

The story is not that Trump argued that the United States would be better off if a dictator had been allowed to stay in power in Iraq; the story is that things are different now, because the presumptive Democratic nominee is whacking him for saying it. By consistently covering Trump's argument over time, and by following up on it, media outlets did their job to inform voters. That was why June 5's collective Captain Renault moment was so strange, and so demonstrative of why many media consumers are skeptical of what they're hearing. Instead of a debate on the facts -- should Hussein have been removed? Did he "kill terrorists," in a contradiction of what Americans were told before the war? -- there was manufactured outrage, straight from a rival campaign.