How Trump Manipulates The Media

The ability to influence mass media is an actual real life superpower. The Kardashians, for instance, have earned over a hundred million dollars with that power. But by far the best media influencer that I have ever seen is Donald Trump. While other people get buried by scandals, he thrives on them. He won the presidency through a hailstorm of scandals that really no one else could have come through, despite spending only slightly over half of what Hillary did on his campaign. And that was because Donald was able to get the media to influence votes towards him for, for free, despite the fact that many of those outlets were trying to do the exact opposite. And that's why in this video, we are going to talk about why Trump is able to thrive in today's media environment and how he controls the media so well. To be clear, I'm not supporting or even criticizing Trump in this video. I'm personally just interested in how all of this works. So let's begin with what it is that Trump wants. And that's pretty simple. Trump wants to have his core message repeated, whatever that message is at any given time. And he wants that as often as possible until it's stuck, sticks in your memory, and all the opposing messages are just drowned out. After all, what gets repeated gets remembered, and what gets remembered gets done. To be clear, this isn't unique to Donald Trump. Brands pay big money to do this all the time. The only difference is that McDonald's has to pay every time you see one of their ads. Whereas Trump got over $2 billion in free advertising during the 2016 campaign, and who knows how much since then. Now, he did that by understanding that the news media want very specific things. They need stories that people are going to watch, click and share, because without that, the outlet goes out of business. And what people are going to watch, click and share turns out to be a very small group of things. First off, those things need to be sensational. We pay attention to things that seem out of the ordinary. Not every single day is going to bring news that feels so crazy and out of the ordinary, so boring. And nuanced statements are often taken out of context in order to drive up the shock value and grab attention. Small business owners. Guess what? The President has a new message for you.

You got a business that you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. Huh? Ooh. You didn't build that. Who built that? Who built that business? Who worked? Who invested? Who took risks? Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you got a business, you didn't build that country. You're trying to come in. We're stopping a lot of them, but we're taking people out of the country. You wouldn't believe how bad these people are. These aren't people. These are animals. I want to share what Trump said.

Yesterday when he was talking about sanctuary cities in California.

These are animals.

I'm a lot more concerned of when he does things like call immigrants. And it is a very slippery slope when you start dehumanizing people this way. It's what the Nazis did, it's what slave owners did. It's not what Americans do. Thank you. There would be an MS.13 gang member I know about.

If they don't reach a certain threshold.

I cannot tell ICE about them.

We have people coming into the country trying to come and we're stopping a lot of them, but we're taking people out of the country. You wouldn't believe how bad these people are. These aren't people. These are animals.

Within sensationalized stories, there is one type of sensationalism that is king and that is stories that make you angry, that get you riled up because nothing gets shared more than videos and articles that enrage people. And Ryan Holiday dives deep into this in his book Trust Me, I'm Lying. I highly recommend it if this topic interests you. Third, there is a strong preference for news that has a strong audio and visual component to it. Now the recent reporting of kids in cages at the border hints hits this hard with audio and video that grabs you emotionally. These images and this audio hits immediately on an emotionally resonant level. Now there's a lot of terrible things that are going on in the world. For instance, drone strikes that are killing families, leaving kids crying in just the same way. But we don't have the audio and visual component of those and therefore it's less likely that that would ever make news or create as much of an emotional respons. Fourth, the news needs to be novel. We crave the new and the Kardashians are a fantastic non political example of this. The first time that Kim had a semi nude photo, it quote unquote broke the Internet. At this point she's done full frontal on her Instagram several times and it's not even generated quite as much buzz. You have to do something new constantly or the public just loses interest and that's very quick. Fifth, if this wasn't already obvious, the news needs to be simple now. Dead simple to the point that it flat out ignores the complicated nature of the real world. And politicians have known this for a very long time.

Yes, we can. Thank you, New Hampshire. Thank you. We will make America safe again. And yes, together we will make America great again.

Despite the fact that politicians have kind of known these rules, if not outright described them, the news still often would get the best of them, resulting in scandal. You've got Monica Lewinsky, Abu Gharib, Benghazi, and essentially the news cycle would control these politicians. They were forced to play defense for months at a time. But Trump has actually learned to reverse this. He seems to happen to the news. And he does that because he accepts that the news is going to be sensational, simplistic, novel and enraging. And that's why he crafts his messages with those things in mind so the media literally cannot resist telling the stories that he wants told. Now, all of this comes through in some very specific behaviors from him. A few of them I've covered in other videos. One that I did on Trump during the election where I predicted that he was going to win before he'd even won the Republican nomination. So if you're interested in those, I'm going to link to them. You can check them out. But continuing here, let's start off with the first core tenet of controlling the news, which is that you have to assert a very simple positive message and associate that with yourself.

We don't win anymore. We don't win anymore in our country, Sean. We don't win anymore. We used to win. We don't win anymore. We don't win with trade, we don't win with war. We can't even beat isis. And we're going to win. If I win, I will tell you, if I win, we all win, because we are going to win.

The reason the message needs to be simple is because most people are only hearing sound bites and reading headlines. And it needs to be grasped by those people. And it also makes it much harder to take your message out of context if it's extremely simple. Here's Bernie Sanders breaking this rule of simplicity. And it has a very predictable outcome in the news cycle.

I believe that a Medicare for all single payer program will substantially lower the cost of health care for middle class families. So instead of paying $10,000 to Blue Cross or Blue Shield, yes, some middle class families would be paying slightly more in taxes, but the result would be that that middle class family would be saving some $5,000 in health care, cost a little bit more in taxes, do away with private health insurance premiums, It's a pretty good deal.

You get bonus points for simplicity if you can use imagery to communicate your points. And that can be an image that is a literal image that you look at or an image that you describe by painting a picture in people's minds so that it sticks with them.

On day one, we will begin working on an impenetrable, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful southern border wall.

The second thing that Trump does frequently is in the event of disadvantageous news, which seems to be all the time these days. You don't want to waste too much time defending yourself. Defending yourself requires actually repeating the charges against you. And remember, what gets repeated gets remembered. You also don't want to necessarily paint a clear picture in people's minds in the case of disadvantageous news. So restating the charges should only be done very vague, vaguely, if at all.

When you walked off that bus at.

Age 59, were you a different man or did that behavior continue until just recently?

And you have two minutes for this. That was locker room talk. I'm not proud of it. I am a person who has great respect for people, for my family, for the people of this country, and certainly I'm not proud of it, but that was something that happened. If you look at Bill Clinton, bonus.

Points for not wasting time with your denials if you can do it without saying a single word. And body language and facial expressions count for a lot here. In addition, if you do use words to deny, you can make the whole thing seem less credible by setting your denial in a more informal setting, not really dignifying it with a formal press conference like in this clip. Then why did Michael Cohen make it.

If there was no truth or allegation? Well, you have to ask Michael Cohen, Michael, do you know where he got the money? No, I don't know.

Third, if you do get into these hot water situations where you are denying with your body language or your imagery list statements, you need to quickly counterattack and you want to do that with vivid imagery.

But Bill Clinton was abusive to women. Hillary Clinton attacked those same women and attacked them viciously. Four of them here tonight. One of the women, who is a wonderful woman at 12 years old, was raped at 12. Her client she represented got him off and she's seen laughing on two separate occasions, laughing at the girl who was raped, Kathy Shelton, that young woman, is here with us tonight.

This point is key because the more sensational you make your attacks, the more the media cannot resist them. They must publish them or lose the eyeballs to other competitors. And that means that you're counterculture attacks are going to get more coverage than the original accusation does. After all, what gets repeated by these news outlets gets remembered.

It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country. Because you'd be in jail. Secretary Clinton, attack of fake news and attacking our network. I just want to ask you, sir, I'm changing it from fake news, though. Doesn't that undervalue very fake news? I know, but aren't you.

Notably spending a lot of time apologizing is not in this playbook? Validating the other side's good intentions isn't in here either. Nuanced arguments, not in here. And that's all because those things do not play well with the media. They're prone to be taken out of context, misunderstood, and simplified to assert a message that disrupts your own. And Trump avoids all of those things whenever possible. Though obviously extreme occasions are going to warrant an apology as long as there is a good opportunity for a counterattack in there.

Anyone who knows me knows these words don't reflect who I am. I said it. I was wrong, and I apologize. I've said some foolish things, but there's a big difference between the words and actions of other people. Bill Clinton has actually abused women and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed, and intimidated his victims.

Now, I have to state again, this isn't meant as praise nor as criticism of Trump. I'm just trying to illustrate that he is an excellent media manipulator. He gets how this works. But this process isn't necessarily new. The photogenic JFK beat Nixon in the first televised debates. Charming Bill Clinton handled George Bush Sr. In the town hall debates, and w just felt like the guy that you'd rather get a beer with compared to John Kerry. All of these men were talented in using the media of their day to accomplish their goals. Trump is really just the latest iteration. So if all of this feels a little bit icky to you and you don't like it, what can you do? Well, first off, I want to stop you. Don't blame the media. The media does all of this because this is what we pay attention to. Think about it. Sensationalism, rage, simplicity, striking image, constant newness. The media only demands these things because that's what people click on, watch and share. And that probably goes for you as well. Just think about the things that you're clicking and how you wound up on this video, for instance. So if you don't like it, I have two pieces of advice one is to learn to communicate in media speak. If you're going into any sort of public facing field and you can watch our video on Word Choice, check out our other videos on Trump if you want to learn more from someone who has been practicing this from decades. Second, if you want society to resist the urge towards simplicity, sensationalism and all the rest, start with yourself. So if you read or you watch something that makes you upset, recognize what is happening to you and don't share the outrage. Instead, go and donate to a cause that actually helps solve the issue at hand. And that can mean through your time, volunteering or even just giving $5. That will genuinely make the world a better place and begin a cycle of changing things rather than just starting rage for the sake of advertiser eyeballs. So thank you very much if you've made it this far and for watching. If you like this video and you want to see more like it, make sure to click the subscribe button and that notification bell. I'm going to be doing some other big names in the coming weeks and this is the best way to make sure that you don't miss a new video from us. So I hope that you enjoyed this video and I look forward to seeing you in the next one.